Attempt
by amitai
Summary: Aged 16, things have gone very badly for Alex Rider. And, the way he sees it, there's only one way to set things right. NOT a death-fic... but it was a close run thing.
1. Prologue

Hello, loyal, faithful readers.

OK, kinda.

This story is totally finished, and was originally intended to be a very long one-shot... but then it hit over 50 pages, and I thought, hmm, maybe not. So it is now a multi-chapter fic, but I should be able to update it nice and regularly.

Oh, and the first person to leave a review saying something along the lines of: "Yeah, fine, but where's chapter 5 of Hell Is Other People" will be surreptitiously lynched. It is coming. Badgering me to do it just makes me feel pressurised, and I don't enjoy what I'm writing, therefore what I'm writing is no good. Is that understood?

I hate being all stern and nasty, so please, don't make me be. I'd much rather be sweetness and light all the time.

Well, most of the time. Sometimes, I just like snarling and throwing things at innocent passers-by, but that's another story. Oh, and a quick plug? A good friend of mine, xaritomene, has uploaded an AR fic, which I've read and enjoyed, so if you have a moment, go check that out, yeah?

Right. Onwards.

DISCLAIMER: Yes, of course I own Alex Rider. Duh.

Except maybe kind of not.

* * *

It all started on the 23rd of August.

If Alex was being honest, it had actually started way before that, a few days after his uncle's funeral, when he was roped into working for MI6. But things started to go really, seriously downhill after the 23rd of August, when he got his GCSE results from Brooklands, along with a letter, saying that 'due to his poor results, they regrettably could not allow him back into the school'; things started getting even more difficult after that. MI6 didn't seem to feel that his appalling GCSE results – three Es and the rest U's – were a problem. In fact, Blunt had gone so far as to say that it added to his cover – no one would suspect a "drop out", as he oh-so-tactfully put it, of working for them.

Alex knew he was right, but that didn't make him feel any better. He was totally, utterly trapped. As Mrs. Jones had pointed out, it was "just as well he worked for them, or he would be completely destitute".

That little observation made him want to scream, because, after all, if he hadn't been working for them, his GCSE results would have been excellent. Before he got involved with MI6, he'd never had a mark below an A; but there was nothing he could do to change things now. He was stuck, working for MI6. They had complete control over his life, and, for the moment, he just had to accept that.

Blunt and Jones had done little to help him – immediately after he got his results back, they'd called him in to discuss them, making it very clear that they intended to use his lack of educational prospects – and, therefore, his supposed stupidity – to their own advantage. For a few wild moments, Alex had wondered whether they could possibly have engineered his results… before he realised. Of course they had. Not by suppressing his real results, or anything like that, not by falsifying the grades – but by sending him on mission after mission during his GCSE year. He'd never had a chance to learn the syllabus, let alone revise it! He only got back from Beirut two days before his first exam, with an amazing suntan and some horrific bruises, neither of which he could explain, and no revision done for anything. He'd been too busy dodging bullets to revise for exams.

He didn't even have the familiar, friendly comfort of Jack to soothe him. She had started to irritate MI6 about his "job" just over a year ago, and they – Mrs. Jones, specifically, in this instance – had claimed that she was an "unacceptable weakness" in Alex's life. She had been deported three days after his fifteenth birthday, and Alex hadn't heard from her since – not, he suspected, for lack of trying on Jack's part.

Alex sighed as he let himself in to the big empty townhouse. Most of his year mates were on holiday now – on holiday, or at least relaxing, after a long, tough summer term. Alex would have loved to be able to relax, but had had no chance to do so – Blunt had explained that they would take Alex's house bills out of the fund his uncle had left him, and that they would deposit fifty pounds a month into an account for his food. Alex had worked out that, at the rate he was growing, he wasn't going to be able to live on fifty a month – not with decent clothes and enough for food, at any rate – and he was intelligent enough to realise that the fifty pounds a month was the nearest he was going to get to a salary from MI6. So, he had a job; it wasn't much, just working at a local Tescos, but it gave him a relatively steady source of income.

He knew, though, that he would lose it the moment he got his next assignment.

There was, he remembered, dully, as he half-heartedly poked at the pasta he'd cooked for himself, a week left until school restarted – just a week. A week, and then his future was set in stone – no chance of going back. He'd be a drop out for the rest of his life – useless and totally at the mercy of MI6. What little there was of it.

It was not a cheering prospect.

* * *

Over the next couple of weeks, he used various methods to take his mind off it – cleaning the house and weeding the garden were useful, two tasks which never seemed to be over, and which always took it out of him – or practicing karate, or one of the various languages he was supposed to be learning. Despite being happy to exploit his "stupidity", MI6 were also keen to take advantage of what they called his "raw intelligence", and now that he was totally their property, he was being coached in three new languages, as well as his "old" ones, along with the ins and outs of politics and diplomacy – even a little law, as well as the history of various important countries, and their customs. In a lot of ways he was better educated than most, if not all, of his peer group – but Alex knew, all too well, that it was the results, not the intelligence, which mattered. His "lessons" served as an adequate means of distraction, however, from his new, joyless life. For about ten days, Alex had an assignment in Venezuela, which required his full attention; and the nightmares it left him with – it had been a particularly brutal situation – also kept him occupied for a while. 

But nothing really worked. MI6 could, and did, interfere in his life whenever they wanted; he lost his job at Tescos, after the Venezuelan assignment, and found another, in Sainsbury's, which he promptly lost, after MI6 insisted that he do a residential course on Arabic.

In desperation, he signed on as a cleaner at the local primary school, though it meant working late. He couldn't afford not to have an extra job, or he wouldn't be able to afford to buy food for a month. He was sent on another assignment, this time to Saudi Arabia, and when he collapsed through the front door of his house, still aching from the beatings he'd received, once he'd been found out, and mentally drained at having to give his report to his "superiors" at ten o'clock at night, with no medical support, he found the notification, shoved through the letterbox, that he'd lost that job, too.

The next morning, he'd attempted to find another one, but, bruised up as he was, and looking like a delinquent – he hadn't had the money to spare for new clothes, and he hadn't had anything new for nearly a year now; and in his line of work, clothes tended to get battered and torn easily – he wasn't entirely surprised that no one would have him, no matter how willing he was to work.

MI6 forced the issue, forcing him to spend more and more time working on his "lessons", and adding shooting to his already practically-unbearable "extra" workload. It was worse than Scorpia, and far more brutal; Scorpia had at least pretended to look after him, which was more than MI6 was doing. Without a job, Alex managed to eke two and a half weeks worth of plain, ordinary food out of the fifty pounds MI6 allotted him, but was soon left with next to nothing.

Alex was damned if he was going to go and ask them for money – they already owned enough of him as it was. He made one last attempt to find a job, searching desperately, but it was as if people had been warned off him, and no one would take him on.

Finally, he gave up on all of it – MI6, finding a job, everything. It wasn't worth it any more; it wasn't worth trying to juggle all of this for a life he was enjoying less and less. He woke up each morning with dread a physical pain in his stomach – it wasn't worth living that sort of a life.

It wasn't a decision he came to lightly – he had thought about it, on and off, for a while, and seriously contemplated it for nearly a week, before he came to a full resolve. He observed, with black humour, that it was hardly something to be rushed into. Finally, though, he came to a decision. After all, with no power whatsoever over his own life, there was only one thing left that he _could_ do to get rid of it all.

MI6 had taught him the value of planning ahead, so he did – he planned exactly where, when and how he was going to kill himself. One problem he did stumble over was his funeral. There was no way he wanted MI6 organising it, but then, he had limited options: Tom couldn't do anything, and he'd been pushing him away anyway – a friend as close as Tom, who knew as much as Tom did, was too much of a worry, after what had happened to Jack. As for Jack herself – well, he was willing to bet that she would be banned from even coming to it, let alone organising it. And that was pretty much and exhaustive list of everyone he could ask.

Except… Alex paused, doodling idly on a sheet of scrap paper. There was just one person. He was loath to ask them for help, even after he'd died, but there wasn't anyone else he could turn to, and, after all, it wasn't like he'd have to face the reaction, hopefully.

* * *

So, casually, after one of his "diplomacy" lessons, Alex slipped into one of the small offices, which an employee had left, presumably for a coffee or loo break, and hacked into one of the "personal details" files on the SAS. He stared at the screen, memorizing the details as they came up. 

"What the hell d'you think you're doing?!" a shocked, rather belligerent voice said, behind him. He slipped out of the desk chair, turning to face the irate employee.

"Random security check." Alex said, quietly, quickly closing the window he'd brought up. "You need to be more careful." The man's expression went from belligerent to slightly worried; Alex couldn't bring himself to feel bad. "Try encrypting your data next time." He added, for good measure, then left the man stuttering his agreement.

Alex wrote the name and address he'd learned from the computer on an envelope first, to make sure that he didn't forget them before writing the actual letter.

He drafted the actual note several times, less because he was worried about what Wolf would think of him and more because – well, because, even now, he was reluctant to show Wolf any more of his weaknesses than he was already displaying. Finally, though, he managed it.

'_Wolf_', he wrote, '_I'm sorry to bother you with this, but there's no one else I can ask. Can you organise my funeral? I don't want MI6 doing it, and you're the only other option I've got. Sorry. If everything's gone to plan, you should find my body at St. Thomas's Hospital._

_Alex Rider (Cub)._

As far as a suicide note went, it was a little clinical and detached, but that was what he wanted – he was hardly going to pour out his soul to anyone at this point, least of all Wolf. The note did what he wanted it to, and it gave all the information he wanted to share.

Alex knew, from his little venture into computer hacking, that Wolf was on active service at the moment, but should be back in a little over a week. In terms of timing, that would be just about fine.

Alex sent the letter on his way to Westminster Bridge Road, early the next morning. St. Thomas's Hospital loomed opposite the Houses of Parliament, and Alex stood on the bridge for a few moments, looking across at the seat of the democracy he had given up so much for, and had worked so hard so may times to save. Then, he turned away, and walked, slowly and deliberately, to the busiest part of the road, then stood there, waiting on the pavement. It was seven thirty in the morning – the traffic was starting to get busy, without being jammed to a standstill. Alex took a couple of deep breaths, and picked out one of the oncoming cars – a black cab. Then he stepped out into the road.

* * *

Short prologue, but it speeds up from here on in. 

Hope you enjoyed - tell me, yeah? This is going to be my last new story for a while, until I've managed to finish another of my stories, but at least this one should be over and done with quickly. I'm working on an AR oneshot, Alex/Wolf, and a multi-chaptered Alex/Yassen, so... that should be fun.

-ami xxx


	2. Chapter 2

Readers, darlings, light of mine eyes.

Well.. nearly. Ya get the picture. But, thank you all for the PHENOMENAL response to this! 72 reviews for one chapter!? I'm amazed. Thank you all - you are sweet and lovely people, and you will all have a place in Heaven.

...don't hold me to that one, yeah? (grin)

This was supposed to be updated regularly once a week, but I was very very busy on Tuesday, and ill on Wednesday - it was very Elizabeth Barrett Browning, I had to lie in a darkened room and moan; I'm just a martyr to my headaches - so. Thursday it is. But, it will be Wednesdays most weeks. The end of the story is currently undergoing strenuous revision - and I mean _strenuous_ - but it's basically finished.

Thanks as always to **Von, **who normally has the good sense to bully me through writing the bits I get stuck on, and encouraging me through the bits I'm enjoying. Such a lovely friend. :D

And I suppose **xaritomene **can have a look in too. If she's very, VERY nice. (grin) Go read her story, please?

Oh... be wary in this chapter, folks. Because Wolf's got a mouth on him; he's SAS. Do you REALLY think he's going to run around using 'heck' as his strongest word? Yeah, I didn't think so either. No complaints because of the swearing; I understand your point, but I have considered it, and decided to discount it for the moment. It's valid, but it doesn't work here.

DISCLAIMER: It's all mine. Except for the bits which are, y'know... not.

* * *

When Wolf got back from their latest assignment, he was shattered – it was only 2.15 in the afternoon, but he was quite seriously jet-lagged, having just come back from Mexico, and he wanted nothing more than to sleep for about a week. And that was the reason that he ignored the post waiting for him, and went straight to bed without bothering to do more than turn on the heating, and check his answering machine for messages.

He finally stumbled out of his bedroom the next morning at nine, his body clock protesting; and he dressed and ate before he even remembered the post.

Wolf flicked through it, rather absently – several bills, an obscene amount of circulars and junk mail, one of the normal, rather depressing letters from his parents, a postcard from his sister, an invitation to his brothers wedding. He hadn't even known that his brother was engaged.

The last envelope, though, intrigued him. He didn't know the handwriting, and he couldn't think of anyone outside his family who would bother to write him a handwritten letter.

Putting down the rest of the mail, he ripped the envelope open, and unfolded the letter.

Right from the first word, he was tense, and he scanned the letter through once, without taking it in hardly at all. By the time he finished reading it, he was cold, and he went through it again, more slowly, to try and properly understand what he was being told.

_Wolf_, the note read. _I'm sorry to have to bother you with this, but there's no one else I can ask. Can you organise my funeral? I don't want MI6 doing it, and you're the only other option I've got. If everything's gone according to plan, you should find my body at St. Thomas's Hospital_.

The note was signed from 'Alex Rider', apparently 'Cub's real name – but that couldn't be right. It couldn't be. The boy had – had parents, or whatever, and this looked like some sort of twisted suicide note. Why would Cub commit suicide? Granted, it had been nearly two years since he last saw the boy – which begged the question why the hell he was writing to him, Wolf, and, indeed, how he'd found his address – but, surely, nothing so drastic could have happened in that time to make Cub not only commit suicide, but also ask a man he barely knew to organise his funeral!

But, this was Cub, the kid who was an MI6 agent at the age of fourteen. If he was writing a letter like this, even if it was just a post-GCSE practical joke – and if it was, he'd fucking kill the boy himself – he couldn't ignore it. He didn't know what the hell was going on here, but he did know that he had to verify things. Once he knew the facts, he could go on from there. He didn't know the kid, and he'd been a bastard to him, sure, but he did owe him that much.

And he hoped to God that Cub wasn't dead.

"Fuck." He swore once, violently, and paused only to grab his keys, some money and a jacket, before heading out of his flat to St. Thomas' Hospital

* * *

At the hospital, he said to the girl behind the desk, "I'm looking for an – Alex Rider?"

Despite what he'd been hoping, he was fully expecting to be given a sympathetic look, and a direction to the hospital morgue. From what he knew of Cub, the boy didn't do things by halves, and if he decided to commit suicide, chances were that he'd have succeeded.

But the girl just nodded, and typed something into the computer. Then she looked back up at him, smiled politely, but with a faint hint of sympathy – Wolf steeled himself – and said, "He's only recently woken up sir, and it's still relatives only – are you a relative?"

Wolf paused for a half a second, completely shocked, then collected himself almost instantly, and said, firmly. "Yes. His uncle." He paused, again, more obviously this time. "Is he –alright, then?"

The nurse frowned. "I'll have to see some ID, sir."

Wolf frowned right back at her, but handed over his driving licence as proof of ID. "Sister's son." He said, shortly, to explain the different surname. The nurse nodded, and said, quietly.

"Yes, sir."

"So?" he asked, impatiently. "Is he alright?"

The girl paused, then said, slowly, "He's been unconscious for over a week, sir – he only woke up two days again."

"What…" he paused, choosing his words. "What happened to him?"

She frowned again. "Don't' you know?"

"Obviously not." Wolf snapped.

"Then – why are you here?" she began to fire questions at him, obviously suspicious. "You're the first member of his family who's visited, according to the register – in fact, you're the first person to visit at all! Where are his parents? How did you find out he was here? Why haven't you come before?"

Wolf glared at her, darkly. "His parents are dead." He told her, hoping it was true – he'd never bothered to pull a file on the kid he never, or rarely ever, saw, but if no one had visited before now, and the kid had felt the need to ask Wolf to organise his damn funeral… "He – lives with me," OK, a lie, and an easily falsified one at that, but necessary if he wanted to get in and talk to the kid, which, he found to his surprise, he did, quite badly – if only to settle his curiosity. He suddenly had a hundred and one questions for the boy. "I've been away, on business – I only just got back. The woman I employed to look after him told me he was in hospital, but said no one would give her any details…?" he let his voice become blatantly accusing at that, and she blushed a little.

"Ah. Sorry, sir." She bit her lip. "I'm sure you understand – patient confidentiality…" he nodded, tersely. "So, if you could just verify your address for me.."

For a couple of seconds, he stared at her, then, assuming that they wouldn't have any real information on Cub other than his name, from a school ID card, or some such, he said, calmly, "Flat 3, Walsmore Street, London, SW1 5GF."

Sure enough, she nodded, typing it in. "And a telephone number we can contact you on?"

Rather reluctantly, he told her, and she smiled, nodded, and said, calmly, "Right. Well, that all seems to be fine, then, sir…"

"Then will you _please_ tell me what the hell happened to him?" he asked, impatiently.

The nurse bit her lip again, and looked at him, eyes dark with pity. "I'm terribly sorry, sir – I'm afraid your nephew was in a car accident. The driver of the car said that he just stepped out in front of him."

* * *

Wolf was directed up to Room 153 and left outside the door by a rather more trusting – and very pretty, he noticed, absently – young nurse. Then, with a deep breath, he pushed the door open, and stepped inside.

As he stood in the cool, white, sunny room, it hit him that he had no idea what he was doing here. He didn't know this kid; he could have walked away when he found out that the boy was still alive, rather than a body needing to be dealt with – by him, on the boy's own wish. Instead, he had lied his way into this hospital, had handed over his real address and telephone number, and was now irrevocable linked to the boy, at least in the hospital's eyes.

Maybe it was just because the boy was obviously so damn alone that he'd come, or possibly simply because that letter had asked him to, or maybe it was out of sheer curiosity, but Wolf really didn't know, and his own uncertainty made him snappish – so when he next spoke, he sounded rather angrier than he had intended. "Cub." He practically spat the word.

The still figure on the bed gave a movement which might have been a flinch, on hearing his voice, and struggled to sit up. For a moment, as he waited impatiently for the boy to actually look at him, Wolf wondered rather contemptuously why the boy was finding it so difficult just to sit up – then he saw the plaster cast and the bandages.

Cub's right arm and some of his ribs were broken.

For some reason, the flinch, and the kid's obvious physical vulnerability made him even angrier. "What the fuck was this?" he demanded, holding out the letter Cub had written him.

The boy glanced at him. "Oh." He said, voice quiet and tired, "Sorry about that."

"I don't want your fucking apology, Cub, I want to know what the hell you were thinking!" Wolf snapped at him.

Cub just shrugged.

"That's not an answer." He growled, crumpling the note in his fist. "You stepped out in front of a fucking car, and you haven't got a reason for it?"

The boy looked at his knees, and shrugged again. "Seemed like a good idea at the time." He said, listlessly.

"That's not damn well good enough." Wolf hissed. "What, you got all emotional one day, and decided that you couldn't hack it any longer? Yeah, that's real fucking _adult_, Cub."

The kid looked up at him, and for a moment, Wolf was taken aback by the look in his eyes. Cub might still be alive – however tenuously – but you wouldn't have been able to tell by looking in his eyes. "I've had enough of 'adult'." He said, simply, though there was an undercurrent to his voice that Wolf couldn't decipher.

"Really?" Wolf said, sarcastically. "Adults _deal_ with their problems, they don't kill themselves when things get tough. Suicide's the coward's option."

"Yeah, I guess it is." Cub nodded, and looked away again.

Wolf frowned. The Cub he knew – or had met – wouldn't have been so… passive. "Fuck, Cub, what's so damn wrong that you couldn't deal with it?"

"I thought we'd established that I'm just a weak and pathetic teenager who couldn't 'hack it' anymore?" Cub said, dully.

Wolf shifted, uncomfortably. He had a nasty feeling that he'd really, seriously fucked up here. "Yeah, well – prove me wrong." He said, slowly.

"I don't have to prove anything to you, Wolf." Cub said, harshly. "I wanted you to organise my funeral, but, turns out you don't have to, because I can't even fucking kill myself properly…"

"Why'd you want me to organise your funeral anyway?" Wolf interrupted, moving to sit down.

"Don't sit. You won't be staying long enough." Cub told him, flatly. His hostility would have been threatening if his voice hadn't been tight with pain.

Wolf raised an eyebrow, and sat anyway. "You haven't answered the question."

"Because I don't damn well want to answer the bloody question." Alex snapped.

"I think I've got a right to know."

"I don't think you've got 'a right to know' shit about me, Wolf." Alex told him, sharply "I wanted a favour from you; I don't need it any more. So, thanks for trying, but you can go now."

"What the hell is wrong with you, Cub?" Wolf frowned. Alex opened his mouth to answer him, but he interrupted. "Look. Just tell me why it was _me_, rather than – your parents, or an actual relative, or someone like that?"

Cub shook his head at him. "I ran out of relatives." He said, with a humourless little laugh. "They're all dead."

"Fine, then." Wolf said, impatiently, leaning forwards. "Your guardian, or whoever."

"That'd be MI6." Alex said, emotionlessly.

For a second, Wolf sat there, contemplating it. Then he said, slowly, "Your guardians are MI6?"

Alex nodded.

"So – who do you live with?"

The kid shrugged again, obviously considering the subject closed.

"Just answer the damn question, Cub."

"It's none of your damn business, Wolf."

"I think it is."

"Yeah? Well, I beg to differ." Alex snapped, irritated. "Wolf, I'm not going to tell you who my guardian is, and I'm sorry I bothered you with that note, but don't worry, it's all fine now, isn't it? You don't have to do anything, so you can just go back to ignoring me. I'm fine with that."

Wolf sat in silence for a few seconds, with a rather annoyed frown. "Just tell me this then." He said, grimly. "Why did you try to commit suicide?"

"Oh, saving the difficult questions till last, were we?" Alex asked, flippantly.

"Well, what does your guardian think about it? What have MI6 said?" Wolf asked, fed up with the kid's non-answers.

At that last bit, Cub's face went stony. "Oh, they think it was a _brilliant_ fucking idea." He snarled. "What do you think they think about it?!"

"I don't know!" Wolf flung up his hands, utterly frustrated. "I've got no bloody idea what your job with them is like!"

"Then you know bugger all about me, since, suddenly, MI6 _is_ my entire fucking life." Alex said, angrily. "So you can just fuck off, Wolf, OK? Just get out."

"Cub, I'm sure I can help…" Wolf began, rather awkwardly.

"Well, I'm not sure, so just get the hell out." The boy snapped back at him.

"Cub…"

"I said, get the hell out!" The kid practically screamed him, but his good arm curled rather weakly around his ribs, and his expression twisted in pain.

Wolf stood, then paused, and said, quietly, "You haven't exactly restored my faith in you, kid."

"I don't think I ever _had_ your faith, Wolf, so you can take your trite fucking platitudes elsewhere, alright?" Alex said, wearily, and turned away.

* * *

And there you have it. Please read and review!

lol,

-ami xxx


	3. Chapter 3

Dear readers, I return! And look, I update on a Wednesday, as promised. Aren't I good?

Sadly, having divided this fic up into chapters, I've worked out that each chapter is unlikely to be much more than 5 pages long each. Yeah, it doesn't make for very long chapters, but they'll come nice and regular-like, so please don't be annoyed by the shorter-than-normal chapters. I could update far quicker if I didn't want each chapter of each story to be something substantial; if they were too short, I know I'd fall into the trap of making each one seem like a filler... I'm like that.

It plays havoc with my Lent resolution to make each chapter at least 15 pages, though. Oh, yeah. And giving up butter. Anyone else want to share THEIR Lent resolution? grin

Oh, and, go review xaritomene's story, yeah? It's getting lonely. (_Thank you. I sound like a pariah_ - xari)

We have to stop meeting like this. Updating on the same computer... it's so sordid. :D (_No less sordid than playing football with Mr. Woodlouse, and getting covered in mud. - xari)_

True. But covering HIM in mud is fun...

Right. Sorry for that.

So, please read and review this story, I hope you're enjoying it! Thanks for the OVERWHELMING amount of support for you, you are all lovely and amazing people - and thanks, as always, to **Von**, who puts up with all my niggling doubts, and gives me the occasional slap when I really need it. Thanks, sweetie!

DISCLAIMER: Yep, it's not mine. Dammit.

* * *

Wolf tried to put the visit out of his head – he hadn't exactly covered himself in glory, after all – but he found that he couldn't. The image of Cub, who had been so quiet and calm, and _together_, as the fucked up, angry teenager he'd just seen, wouldn't leave him alone.

He had no idea what could possibly have caused it, the kid's almost-total breakdown; a breakdown which had caused him to attempt suicide. He had some ideas – or rather, he had one idea, that the kid could have just gone through a really bad mission – but it was hardly a very substantial theory, or even that plausible. MI6 would give the kid support and counselling if he'd had an appalling assignment, so that wasn't likely, and Cub didn't strike him as being the sort to try and top himself over a bad argument with his guardian, or his girlfriend, or whoever.

What was worse than not knowing what caused it, though, was not knowing what to do about it.

Finally, about three days later, he called Snake over to his flat, to ask his advice.

"Wolf." His team mate said, calmly, sat at the table in Wolf's kitchen. "What's wrong?"

Wolf hovered, rather awkwardly, by his fridge. "Why would something be wrong?" he paused. "Are you sure you don't want a coffee, or something?"

"See? That's what's wrong." Snake offered him a quick grin. "That's the fourth time you've offered me a drink. You're buzzing around like a blue arsed fly, so sit down and tell me what the hell is wrong with you."

Finally, reluctantly, Wolf sat down, and said, slowly, staring at the table rather than make eye contact with his team mate, "You remember Cub?"

Snake smiled a little. "'Course I remember Cub. Why?"

"Got a note from him, the other day." He stood, and fetched it from the place it left it, in the hall, then handed it to the other man. "It was waiting for me when we got back, from Mexico."

Snake read the note through, and then, as Wolf had down, read it through again, face going rather white. After about five minutes, he put it down on the table, smoothing it over a little absently, and said in a not-totally-steady voice, "So – he's, er…" he cleared his throat. "The kid's dead, then?"

Wolf shook his head quickly, and Snake sighed in relief. "No. Not for want of trying, though, I've gotta say." He shrugged. "He's in hospital." He paused again, searching for the words. "He – there's…" he stopped, and thought again. "There's something wrong, Dave." He said, finally, slowly.

"You think? The kid tried to off himself aged _sixteen_, I'd say that's a pretty good indication that there's something wrong!"

"Yeah, I know, but…" he clenched his hands, frustrated that he couldn't find the right words. "I know there's something wrong, but – it's not something _normal_, it's not just problems with his parents, or his guardian, or his girlfriend – hell, as far as I can tell, it's not even just problems with MI6, a bad assignment, or something! It's like…" he sighed. "I went to see him, OK? Y'know, to see whether he _was_ actually dead, whether I had to organise his funeral or not. But – he wasn't, and I talked to him, right? And he was just – empty."

Snake frowned. "You think I should talk to him?"

Wolf looked at him, gratefully. "Might be a good idea." He grinned, rather reluctantly. "God knows you're better at this than I am…"

"Wolf, I think a four year old has more tact than you sometimes." Snake said, with a grin that didn't quite work properly, standing up.

"Where are you going?"

"St. Thomas's." He said, rather surprised.

"You're going to talk to him _now_?!" Wolf said, shocked.

"Well, no time like the present, right? So – are you coming, or not?"

* * *

Snake knocked, carefully, and waited until he saw the kid sit up through glass panel, before he went in.

"Cub." He greeted him, quietly.

The kid lay back again, and turned away. "Another one of you." He shook his head. "One day, if I'm lucky, maybe I'll collect 'em all." There was a bitterness to his tone that Snake had never heard in such a young voice.

He forced himself to laugh at the shitty joke, though. "Yeah, maybe." A pause. "So…" he said, awkwardly, "Um…how're you feeling?"

Cub didn't bother to turn and look at him. "Oh, just peachy." He replied, sarcastically.

"What actually happened to you?" he asked, taking the chair by the bed, and waiting patiently for the kid to answer.

Cub shifted to look at him. "Didn't Wolf tell you?" he asked, bitterly. "I stepped out in front of a car. Was hoping to score a bit better than just some bruises and a broken arm, but I guess none of us are perfect, and it turns out that dying just isn't one of my talents."

"In a job like ours, that's a good thing, Cub." Snake pointed out.

The kid paused for a second, but Snake paid it no mind, and then Cub nodded slowly, and said, "Yeah. I just…" he shrugged, and Snake didn't think to pay an attention to the boy's slightly wary expression. "It got too much, you know?"

Snake gave him a quick smile. "Yeah. I think we all know that feeling." He didn't catch the kid's slightly sardonic smile. "But – why didn't you talk to your guardian?"

Alex shrugged a little. "She's not… she, er…" He paused, and gave Snake a fleeting glance under his lashes, before correcting himself, casually. "She's just – busy."

"Too busy to come and visit you?" Snake asked, quietly. "Wolf said on the way over that no one else had visited you before he arrived."

Cub frowned a little, but Snake put it down to his not having had any visitors. "Yeah." He agreed. "She's not family, though…"

"But – she's your legal guardian. Doesn't matter if she's family or not." Snake frowned.

"She's not my legal guardian." The kid said, meeting his eyes squarely, expression open. "MI6 is; she just looks after me for them. You know, the day-to-day things."

"Oh." Snake nodded, a little taken aback. "Right. I see. Um… She isn't…OK." He paused. "Couldn't MI6 swing it so that you could see her?"

"Obviously not." Cub shrugged, and if his voice was bitter, Snake didn't know the reason. There was a brief pause, then the kid added, tiredly. "They're busy too, y'know? Too busy to deal with my little issues." He looked Snake firmly in the eye. "I'll live." Snake didn't pay any attention to the ironical little catch in the kid's voice.

"You could ask Wolf if he'd bring…"

"No." Cub said, flatly. "I'm not asking anything of Wolf."

"He's not such a bad guy, Cub." Snake tried, but he got the feeling he was wasting his breath.

"I'm sure he's not, with you." The kid replied, and that was it. Snake did think of trying to continue the conversation, but decided that enough was enough for the moment. He stood, and looked down at the boy.

"I'll come back, OK?" he said, with what he hoped was a reassuring smile. "Tomorrow, maybe. We could catch up."

"Yeah, sure, Snake." Cub said, and this time, the man couldn't help but notice the sarcasm in his tone. "We could 'catch up'."

For a second, Snake hesitated – then he nodded. "Yeah. See you, Cub."

Cub didn't reply.

* * *

The moment Snake had gone, Alex swung his legs over the side of the bed with a wince, and hobbled over to the chair where the hospital had left his clothes. He only had the things he'd been wearing the day he'd stepped out in front of a car, but they hadn't been badly damaged – only bloodstained. The hospital had had them cleaned, and returned to him. Now, he slipped them on, wincing as he pulled bruised muscles, or put pressure on fractured and broken bones. Once he was fully clothed, his sling firmly in place and the pain medication he'd been issued the day before in his pocket, he headed out the door, walking as confidently as he could, considering his injuries, towards the records centre. He needed to hack in to their system, update his records so that it looked like he'd been discharged – and then he could go home.

And try and find himself a job, he remembered, a heavy stone of dread settling into his stomach. This hadn't changed anything; he was still a sixteen year old dropout with no prospects, and no one to turn to.

There had been several times, over the past few days, when he wished, more than anything, that he had succeeded in killing himself. Now was definitely one of them.

He walked with as much false confidence as he could muster, knowing from experience that if he looked like he knew what he was doing, no one would try to stop him. He hung around outside the records centre for a few moments, until someone left, and then slipped in, updating his own records as quickly as he could. He was surprised to find that they had Wolf's address on file for him; but he deleted it and replaced it with a totally random one. Though it was tempting to leave it and let Wolf deal with all the uncomfortable questions which would be asked, if they tried to contact Wolf, too many questions would be asked by people he didn't want asking them. It just wasn't worth it.

Records updated and sufficiently changed, Alex headed out. He didn't have the money for a taxi, nor enough money to put credit on his Oyster card so he could take the Tube; and it felt like an even longer walk than it was to get back home. Once he was in the townhouse, he collapsed on to one of the sofas, and flirted with the idea of heading upstairs… and then discarded it as too dangerous. Still prone to dizziness – he'd hit his head first on the windscreen of the taxi, and then on the tarmac as he rolled off, and had given himself an impressive concussion – and off-balance due to his broken arms and ribs, tackling stairs was not a good idea right now.

Alex woke up a few hours later with the now-customary splitting headache, and a crick in his neck. Everything ached, and he stumbled to the kitchen, thinking of maybe making himself a cup of coffee, or tea, or something like that.

The cupboards were empty of everything except random things like tinned asparagus and root ginger – things which every house had, and no one seemed to eat. The milk in the fridge was several days out of date, and Alex was down to his last few teabags. And he still had a few days until the fifty pounds from MI6 came in.

Sighing, Alex put the kettle on, and pulled the nearly-empty jar of coffee out of its cupboard, resigning himself to black coffee for the moment.

Back in the sitting room, he started planning.

Hopefully, he wouldn't need to worry about house bills – MI6 would still be paying them, if he was lucky. Though, if he was going to be honest, he was more than a little surprised that the house hadn't been being watched by an agent, who could then report back to MI6.

He smiled, rather grimly, at that. There probably had been; but he was willing to bet on the reason why he hadn't already received a phone call from them. He'd been limping pretty badly when he got back here – his clothes were dishevelled, his arm in a sling. As he was at the moment, he was no use to MI6 at all, and if they picked him up again, they'd have to help him out with things like PT, and painkillers. It was far easier for them just to sit back and wait until he was healthy again – "fully operational" – and then use him.

He wouldn't be getting a phone call from them for a while. So, for the moment, he had a job to find, so he could afford to eat.

After maybe a quarter of an hour of wrestling with the problem, he leant back onto the slightly-dusty sofa with a sigh, and took a sip of the still-slightly-too-hot coffee.

Life was still looking amazingly bleak.

* * *

And there you have it. Enjoy? Do tell.

lol,

-ami xxx


	4. Chapter 4

Dear readers, it is a Wednesday, and I therefore return with the next instalment of my - ahem - epic. (grin)

A quick question - though I'm bowled over by the number of reviews this story has got, and thank you to all of you, the response dropped considerably last chapter, and I'm just wondering, was there a reason for that? I'm not going to stamp my foot over it - though it was, of course, incredibly tempting just to spend the week pouting over it (grin) - but, was there a reason for it? Was there something people disliked about last chapter - poor characterisation, bad writing, drop in the plotline?

(shrug/blush/grin) I feel bad asking, since the response to this has been overwhelming, but the drop in reviews was quite considerable, and since I am, at heart, totally and utterly paranoid...

Sorry. I'm not ungrateful - just totally paranoid. If I CAN do something better, I want to, y'see...

Thanks go to the following people: **Silver Queen**, **Aimed mischief, Fishy-Bubbles, R-Gomeni, dreamofstories (tthfanfic), vampassassin, The Wall, liz22463, AD/SheWeapon1, Embry, carsinya, ladylookslikeadude, dreamgirl93, MarauderetteLily, CMT1992, enda, Jossi-kun, Kates Master's Sister, Novocain, random, Lake25, DeathGodGirl, hahaheeheehaha, ninjamonkey, Gold is power, Mrs.JonesPepermentProvider, Elithil **and **blackroserising.**

Of course, as always, a huge vote of thanks goes out to **Von,** who nursed me through this, and also to **xaritomene**, who kicked me when I needed to be kicked. Thanks, both of you!

DISCLAIMER: It's all lies, I say, lies. Alex Rider is mine, mine, mine!! I know he is - the voices told me so.

* * *

Snake headed over to St. Thomas' Hospital on his own the next morning, having arranged it with Wolf that it was probably best for the other man to give the kid some space, after the way he'd handled him the first time. He didn't bother checking in at reception, now that he knew where Cub was in the hospital, which was why he managed to get all the way up to the kid's room before he found out that Cub was, in fact, no longer there.

He headed back down to reception, face set into a hard frown, confused and more than a little worried.

"I'm looking for Alex Rider." He said, as calmly as he could, at the reception desk, trying to ignore the small stirrings of worry he could feel starting up. After all, it wasn't unreasonable to be worried, the kid had just tried to kill himself – and shouldn't he have been on suicide watch, or something, anyway?

The secretary gave him a piercing look. "Are you a blood relative, sir?"

"Yes." He said, impatiently. "I'm his cousin, mother's side. Look, I have to – catch a train soon, please, I just want to visit my cousin, his uncle told me he was in hospital."

The secretary – "Tish", according to her name-badge – pursed her lips a little, but didn't question it, typing something into the computer. "Mr. Rider was discharged earlier today." She read something off the screen, her lips moving just a little. "According to his doctor, no follow-ups are required."

"Have you got an address there?" Snake asked, worried, but determined not to show it.

"You can ask 'his uncle' for that." 'Tish' told him, rather sarcastically, and that was all he could get out of her, no matter what he tried.

* * *

Outside the hospital, he headed for the Tube, getting over to Wolf's place as quickly as he could. When his team-mate opened the door, and let him in, he said, in a low voice, 

"James, there's a problem…"

Wolf's expression blanked and hardened, a defence mechanism Snake recognised all too well as his team-mate's extremely effective emotional mask. "Kid's alright, isn't he?" he asked, off-handedly. Wolf was never one for admitting that he might actually give a damn about anyone, especially not the ten-day annoyance they'd had to put up with during training. But that didn't mean that seeing that same annoyance lying essentially abandoned in a hospital bed, with broken bones and suicidal tendencies, couldn't kick-start some sort of emotion, at least.

"I don't know." Snake admitted, awkwardly. "He – wasn't there. When I got to the hospital, he'd been discharged, with 'no follow-up necessary'. Look, he was hit by a car just over a week ago, he should still be in hospital, cos he's probably go internal damage of some sort, and – no follow-ups? He should be having PT, and monitoring, and all that! I think Cub fixed the records so he could disappear; I don't think he wanted us to…"

"Wait, Cub?" A voice said, from the doorway. "Cub as in, Brecon Beacons, double-o-nothing? _That_ Cub?"

Snake glanced at Wolf, before looking over at Eagle, and nodding, shortly, once. "That Cub."

Eagle leant against the door-frame, crossing his arms over his chest. "And he got hit by a car?"

Wolf cleared his throat. "No. He threw himself in front of one. Different."

Eagle stared, for once shocked out of his habitual humour-as-a-defence-mechanism demeanour. "He tried to commit _suicide_?!"

"Yeah." Snake said, bluntly. "And now he's disappeared, and I want to make sure that the next time we see him, it's not in a morgue, alright?"

Eagle nodded. "Do you want to ring Matt, or shall I?"

"I will." Wolf said, shortly. "And then I'm going to see if we can find his home address, or something."

"What about MI6?" Snake asked, quietly. "Shouldn't they be notified of their agents – problem?"

Wolf looked at him for a second, apparently thinking it through, before turning away. "What about them?" he asked, coolly.

* * *

Alex spent the next few days trawling round everywhere he could think of, asking for jobs; some of the places he tried, he'd had an hour-long commute to get there. 

In the end, he only got a job because he'd been turned down, yet again, by a library nearly an hour and a half away from his house. He'd crossed the road, heading back to the Tube – he'd scrounged up the money for his Oyster card by using the last of his emergency money, reflecting that his entire life seemed to be one long emergency at the moment, so it was justifiable – and had spotted the sign. "Help Wanted". It was a garage, a large one, and Alex paused before he went in.

He couldn't help in a garage – not with a broken arm.

But he'd tried a whole load of places, the last few days. Anywhere was worth trying.

"Course you can't help here, kid, you've got a broken arm." The large man said, not unkindly, when Alex inquired about the job.

Alex looked away. He couldn't face this again. "Please." He said, and went scarlet when his voice broke over the word. "Please, I've…" he swallowed. "I've tried everywhere."

The man frowned down at him. "Any reason they won't have you?" he asked, an edge to his voice. "You got a criminal record, or something?"

"No, I've got a broken arm." Alex shot back, tone lacking any real bite.

The man – who'd introduced himself as Don Campbell, the owner of the garage – looked at him, and quirked a grin. "Fair point." He frowned. "Right. And, you've worked with cars before, you say?"

"Had a weekend job at the local garage for three years." Alex said, truthfully.

"And why'd you leave there?"

"It shut down."

"OK." Campbell looked away, biting his lip. "Look, kid… I'd like to help, really, but I can't afford pity cases…"

"D'you need help filing?" Alex asked, desperately. "Just until my arm heals; look, I could sort out your records, take phone calls, whatever… I'll stay late, and come in early, whatever works… I can clean up… Then, when my arm's better, I can start with the actual mechanics of it…"

Campbell gave him a long, steady look. "Why're you so desperate, anyway?"

Alex swallowed a little, and shrugged. "I need the money." He admitted, unwillingly, and went on with his now-well-practiced cover story. "My mum just died, and god knows where my dad is." He shrugged. "I need an income."

There was another long pause. Finally, Campbell said, slowly, "And – you're good with filing, you say? Good at organising?"

Alex nodded, quickly. "Yeah, I'm… I'm good at that."

"Come with me." He led Alex into a cluttered little back office, and flicked the light switch; it didn't work. A computer – surprisingly new and up-to-date – stood on a desk among grimy, torn paper, which had somehow spilt onto the floor, and was scattered everywhere, among other miscellany. "Could you organise that?"

Alex hesitated for a moment. He didn't know the slightest thing about what garages needed – licences and all that. But it didn't take him long to make a decision. "Yes." He said, firmly. "I could."

Campbell paused again. "OK." He nodded, slowly. "You're on." He gave Alex a sharp look. "Start tomorrow?"

"Yeah." Alex said, quickly.

"I open up at seven; and you said you could come in early – can you be here at seven? You're going to have your work cut out for you, you know that?"

"I can do seven." Alex nodded, firmly. It would mean getting up at five thirty for the commute, but he could definitely do that.

"See you then, then." Campbell nodded, and turned away, dismissing Alex.

For his part, Alex was nervous, but relieved. It might not be that well paid – the flyer had promised £300 a week, but that was for a mechanic, not a secretary, so Alex was willing to bet that he'd be getting significantly less – but it was still a job, and far better than anything he'd expected. He'd just have to teach himself what was necessary as he went along.

* * *

He woke at five the next morning, to the alarm on his phone, a crick in his neck, and feeling like death warmed over; and it took all his will power to swing his legs over the side of the bed. Splashing cold water on his face, in lieu of a shower – he'd made it up the stairs last night, but it had been a near run thing, and he wasn't about to risk getting his cast wet, or falling over in the shower – he grabbed his keys and Oyster card, and headed out into the cool early-September morning. 

When he got to the garage, Campbell was just opening up, and grinned at him, cheerfully. "Good at time keeping, huh?"

Alex offered him a strained smile, and flushed as his stomach rumbled, grateful that the noise was hidden by the sound of the main garage door grating open. He hadn't eaten since he left the hospital, and he was starving hungry – but he couldn't afford to eat until the end of this week, when he got his pay check.

"I'll just – get started then, OK?" he said, rather awkwardly, and slipped into the little office, pretending not to notice the worried little glance his new employer gave him.

Alex watched with half an eye as the mechanics arrived at work, most of his attention taken by the mammoth task he was beginning to realise lay ahead of him. Someone had, at some stage, tried to organise the garage, but the attempt had been half-hearted at best, and Alex was going to have difficulty sorting things out.

There were vague piles of things; the paper work long-term, registered clients was apparently shoved in the left hand corner of the desk, one-off's were scattered around the computer, and the other bits and pieces – licensing paperwork, bills, and so on – seemed to just be… everywhere else.

Alex was distracted from his paperwork when a shadow fell across the patch of light from the doorway. He looked up to see a man staring down at him, face hard, eyes a little confused.

"Who're you, then?" the man asked, rather harshly.

"Alex." He replied, calmly, voice level. "You?"

"Derek." There was a small pause. "What're you doing? Last I heard, Don advertised for another mechanic, not a bloody secretary."

Alex shrugged, and turned back to his inroad into the paperwork. "And I'll be a mechanic. Just as soon as I get this off my hand." He gestured with the cast, and Derek stared at it, looking more closely at his face.

"Jesus." He said, slowly. "What the fuck happened to you? You have a fight with a bus, or something?"

"Yes, actually." Alex said, quietly, and turned away.

* * *

And there it ends. A little abrupt, maybe - but there is a reason for that. :D

A quick note on Fox - I started this last August, roughly, way before Snakehead came out, and I'm quite attached to my version of Fox, so he will remain my version, and not Ben Daniels; sorry to anyone who was hoping for Ben! But the idea of having him be their contact at MI6 was ingenious.

Hope you enjoyed! Do tell. I have to go and have a driving lesson now, so I may never return. My teacher - poor bastard - will never be the same again. Wish me luck!

-ami xxx


	5. Chapter 5

Hello again! I hope everyone has had a simply splendid week? Mine's been absolutely _topping_.

...sorry. I re-read the "Chalet School" books over half-term. Like Enid Blyton, but set in Switzerland, and about four times as nauseatingly 1940s English. They actually say 'gumswizzled' without cracking up into hysterical laughter. I'm so tempted to write an Alex Rider story where he's transported into some such school. (dreamy trance)

Quick, someone smack me before I _actually_ write something like that.

Right. I'm really sorry that the update is late this week - my dear friend and update buddy xaritomene was out of school at Nottingham yesterday, and I couldn't face updating without her.

...well, it was more the prospect of going into town on my own without a library card for the town library, but... details.

I'm afraid that updates for all my other fics will be sporadic over the next few weeks, because I have to get four courseworks in for next week, learn an entire page of a Grade 8 piano piece, learn three LAMDA scripts and take part in a Songs of Praises thing this weekend. Oh, and then go to Winchester on Monday for some ethics lecture competition thing I misguidedly took part in last term.

Life is hectic, and I'm afraid that fanfiction has taken a back seat - but thank you to all of you for understanding, and thanks to all my lovely reviewers: you've all been incredibly kind, and I'm thrilled that you're all enjoying the story so much!

Special thanks as always to **Von** for her unending support, and **xaritomene** for her unfailing ability to kick me when I'm down. Sorry! I mean, when I need to be kicked.

DISCLAIMER: Always look on the bright side of life - if I owned Alex Rider, it would have been slash.

* * *

Alex took nearly three weeks to get even a semblance of order in the tatty little office; by 'order' he meant more that he'd managed to organise the paper into some form of a system – bills, clients, legalities. He'd spent a lot of his first week there going through the garage and trying to find all the different pieces of paper work that should have been filed in the office. In all honesty, he was frankly shocked that Don had managed to stay afloat for as long as he had, given how disorganised he was with all his paperwork.

Alex brought in boxes, and stacked the papers, and folders, and brochures in them, in their different categories, a task which took a shocking amount of time. He'd applied to Don for the man to buy some files, or file boxes, and to put up some shelves in the office, and the man had eventually given Alex a key to the garage, after a couple of weeks, so that he could lock up behind him; Alex, genuinely scared of being fired, worked overtime most nights.

The files arrived from the bulk supplier a week later – a week which Alex had spent absent-mindedly cleaning out the filthy, oil-stained little office, and working on Don to spring for a new desk to replace the rickety old table, and frankly dangerous chair – and Alex, with very little knowledge of how to organise a filing system, simply winged it. The newly put up shelves were all carefully and clearly labelled in Alex's neat, precise writing, with the same blanket terms that he'd used for the boxes: bills, clients, and legalities.

From there, he'd started with one box of paper, and organised them into different sub-sections, a file for each one, and then painstakingly went through each sub-section, putting the paper into date order before finally filing them.

The entire process took far longer than Alex had been expecting, but it was definitely worth it when Derek – with whom Alex had set up a tentative friendship, after the rather rough start they'd got off to – popped into the office to ask him, as he always did, whether he wanted to come with everyone else for lunch, looked round, whistled once, and said,

"Bloody hell, kid. When did you do all this!?"

Alex smiled a little at that – the first genuine smile in what felt like far too long – ducked his head, and muttered something about it being 'nothing much'.

"No, seriously, this is fuckin' amazing!" Derek was openly staring now. "I didn't even know the walls were this colour!" he looked suspiciously up at the light bulb, still bare, but now working. "How d'you get the light to work, anyway? S'been broken for years."

"The switch'd gone." Alex shrugged, turning back to the desk. "Just needed a bit of re-wiring…"

"And _you_ did that?" Derek looked frankly sceptical. "I thought you couldn't…" he trailed off. "Never mind." He said, rather gruffly, and reached out, patting Alex gently on the shoulder, aware of the still-present bruises, and unhealed arm. "You – you done a good job, kid."

"Thanks." Alex said, with another little smile, and Derek cleared his throat, awkwardly.

"You, um… you want to join us for lunch?" he asked, casually, looking over at the computer. "To celebrate the end of your job?"

Alex's eyes widened, though he was almost certain that that wasn't what Derek had meant. The man caught his mistake almost immediately, correcting himself, quickly, "I mean, of this part of it! That was a big thing you took on, right? I meant, did you want to celebrate – finishing it?"

Alex shook his head, rather slowly. "No. No, it's OK, thanks." He said, still feeling the aftershocks of a surprisingly strong adrenaline surge. "I'm, er… I'm just going to – keep going."

Derek frowned suspiciously, at that. "You have _got_ something to eat, right, kid?" he asked, quietly, and Alex nodded, vigorously.

"Yeah! Yeah, of course. I just want to crack on, you know?"

Derek nodded, looking rather doubtful, but headed out to join the rest of the mechanics.

Alex switched on the computer for just the second time in the three weeks he'd been working there, and took a few minutes just to familiarise himself with it. Luckily, the software was all what he'd been used to, and he was relieved to find that it had internet access. Quickly bringing up the Amazon homepage, he typed in 'mechanics for dummies' and eyed the price carefully, doing the calculation in his head. He could probably afford it.

His monetary situation was a confusing one at the moment; MI6 were still paying his house bills, probably because that didn't require them to shell anything out, as it was all coming out of his Uncle's money; but the money in his bank account had stopped. While it meant that Alex didn't have to worry about electricity bills, or rates, or water bills, he did have to worry about all other expenses – food, clothes, travel. He was earning just over two hundred pounds a week, but, as a sixteen year old boy, he was pretty certain he could spend all of that on food and still be hungry. He had to be careful what he spent money on, and, since he wanted to put some aside so he didn't end up in the same position as last time when MI6 finally picked up on him again, he always saved as much as he could, often half that weeks salary. Between food and travel – the two regular expenses, since he rarely needed new clothes now that he'd all but finished his growth spurt – that didn't leave him with a lot of spare cash.

He worked it out in his head, and figured that he could always take it out of his food money. It would mean that he might have to go without lunch once or twice, but that was no great sacrifice. It was one he'd made regularly over the last few weeks, and while he knew he was losing weight, there was very little he could do about it. He wasn't losing much in muscle tone – because he was beginning to realise that if he became useless to MI6, they wouldn't pay any part of his household expenses, and he needed the money, so he had done what he could, with still-healing ribs and a broken arm, to keep his level of fitness high. But he was beginning to look almost unhealthily thin, and the worst thing was, he was next to helpless to stop it.

With a sigh, he clicked 'place your order', and bought the book. After all, he couldn't afford to lose this job any more than he could afford to lose the dubious protection MI6 gave him.

In the meantime, he opened an Excel spreadsheet, grabbed the file which held the monthly expenses, and started entering the information into the computer.

* * *

Wolf's first idea, once they'd found out that Cub had disappeared from the hospital, was to check the Public Records Office; it figured that they should find out what they could about the kid, if they were going to try and do anything about it. Eagle had been the lucky one to go, and he reported back to their impromptu Headquarters – Wolf's flat – with a worried frown. 

"According to the records," he said, handing over the photocopies he'd scored from the secretary he'd flirted with, "There have been seventeen Alex Riders living around this central-mid London in the last twenty years – it's a pretty common name, I guess. Nine of them are over twenty, so I doubt Cub's any of those; he'd be about our age by now if he were. Out of the eight left, two are disabled in some way, three are under ten, and one is only twelve. That leaves us with two who are round about the right age."

"Then, let's go and check them out." Fox said, stretching tiredly. "Then we can relegate Cub to the tender loving care of his guardian, and stop worrying about him." The red-head had been just as shocked and concerned as the rest of them, but both he and Eagle were inclined to take this much less seriously then Wolf or Snake.

Or Eagle had been, up until right now.

"That's the thing, though." Eagle said, quietly. "We knew, from the Sergeant up at the Beacons, that Cub was an orphan, right?"

Wolf shook his head. "Found that out at Point Blanc." He corrected, ever a stickler for the facts. "The woman from MI6, she told us, when you asked about parental consent, Dave." Snake frowned, thinking back. "When Cub was injured."

Eagle waved one hand, impatiently. "Doesn't matter. We knew Cub was an orphan, either way. And neither of the two Alex Riders left in the area are orphans."

"MI6 could have made a mistake?" Fox suggested, but it was half-hearted. They both knew that MI6 never made mistakes like that. If they said Alex Rider was an orphan, he was an orphan. It was entirely possible that they'd made him one.

"I don't think so." Eagle said, slowly. "I checked the records for 'Rider' generally, and I found one name that sounded familiar – John Rider."

Snake frowned. "I recognise it." He said, slowly. "Officer of some kind, right? Dishonourable discharge, maybe fifteen, sixteen years ago now? Tactician … received the George Cross for his actions in the Falklands." He grinned. "He's mentioned briefly in 'The History of the SAS: Volume II'."

"What would we do without our walking encyclopaedia?" Fox asked, without real bite. Snake ignored him.

Eagle nodded. "Yeah. And there was a newspaper article about him; with a photo."

He put the photocopy on to table, and Snake bit his lip.

The man in the black-and-white newspaper photo, standing rigid in his dress uniform, face slightly shadowed under his peaked cap, could easily have been Cub in a few years time. There was no doubting the relationship.

Wolf cleared his throat. "Right. Well, now we know who his father is, couldn't you just get their files, find out where they lived? Cub's probably still living there."

"I did." Eagle replied, a little sharply. "Rider married a woman called Helen Mortimer, and they died, fifteen years ago, in a plane crash. No children. So I checked Rider's younger brother, Ian; never married, no children, died three years ago. And no address listed."

There were a few minutes of silence after that.

"So…" Fox said, finally. "What do we do now?"

Eagle shrugged, folding the piece of paper up, and slipping it back into the clear folder with all the other photocopies he'd got. "Well, Cub obviously exists." He said, trying to frame his thoughts into words with some degree of coherence. "Probably either Ian or John Rider's kid, and my bet is on John. I think MI6 just erased him from the records, to cover themselves, maybe."

"Maybe the kid gave you a fake name, James?" Snake suggested, tentatively.

"I think he'd probably want his own name written on his tombstone, don't you?" Wolf returned, rather sarcastically. "And there's that photograph; his surname, at least, is definitely Rider. No, I think Neal's right. But god knows what we're going to do now."

Fox considered it, dispassionately. "I guess we're going to have to see whether MI6 have any records on him." He said, slowly. "And if we still can't find him, I vote we see if we can get the high-ups in on it. I mean, technically, since he trained with us, he's a member of our team, right? And until a couple of months ago, we were still getting updates on his status, so apparently he still is. And that makes him SAS; so technically, command can make MI6 give them any information."

"Have you known anyone ever be able to make MI6 hand something over?" Wolf asked, rather darkly.

"Oh, come on." Fox replied, a little irritated. "This is Britain, not… not, Stalin's Russia. Everyone's bound by a degree of legality, and what MI6 are doing at the moment with that kid doesn't exactly have the 'full legal flavour', does it? Something's off, and you're the one who was so insistent that we do something about it. And that's the best way of going about it; so get on with it!"

"He's right, you know, James." Eagle backed the other man up, calmly. "It's as good a plan as we're going to come up with, for the moment."

"Ok." Wolf nodded, rather grudgingly. "Then, I guess… let's get started."

* * *

And, there you have it. I hope you enjoyed, and I'll see you all on Wednesday as usual next week!

-amitai xxx


	6. Chapter 6

(pouts)

(ominous lip trembling)

(weeps)

Today is a BAD day. I was at Accident and Emergency this morning because I've fd up my foot, which is _charming_, and my coursework situation is no better, nor is my Grade 8 piano piece, nor is my LAMDA stuff, and I have become a chronic insomniac due to the enormous amounts of caffeine I've been drinking. If you could take coffee intravenously, I tell you, I would.

Anyway - this chapter is short. Way short. Shorter than it was supposed to be, because the evil EVIL computer I'm updating on - not my own, lovely, shiny _workable _computer - refuses to recognise the word document on the CD I put it on, and decided to cut it all. Since there is no way I'll be able to update tomorrow, and I didn't think it was fair to make you wait till Thursday again, here you are. Have an update.

Sadly, there is no Alex in this one. There was, but he was the bit that got - for want of a better word - chopped. I promise he'll return next week.

So, yes, the pace of the story is slowing down, but then it was never going to be a very fast-paced story anyway, due to the nature of the plotline. It's more - introspective. :D

Thanks go out to the person who noticed that if John Rider had received a dishonourable discharge 10 or 12 years ago, he would have been dead for four years by the time he was discharged from the Armed Forces ((blush)) - I've fixed that little error. And also thanks to the person who wanted an Alex Rider/Chalet School crossover - you have got your wish. It's a one shot I'll be posting in a coupla days.

The rest of you? Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.

Thanks as always to all of my lovely reviewers, and special thanks to **Von** for her support, sarcasm and... something else beginning with an 's', and also to **xaritomene**, who's the reason my foot is screwed up. Yeah, thanks, that reviewer who told her to kick me while I was down. You know who you are.

Well, no, it wasn't _really _her. It was a particularly evil table in my school dining room. But, yeah. **xari** kicks good.

DISCLAIMER: Due to unforeseen financial cutbacks on the part of the author, this disclaimer has been cu-

* * *

Despite K-Unit's best efforts, they found no records of Alex Rider in the MI6 records – not that they had expected to. If there were any, it was highly unlikely that they were going to be easily accessible, given that MI6 had gone so far as to erase all traces of Alex Rider ever existing outside their own organisation.

Wolf had taken the case to their superiors, and had been surprised at the level of cooperation he got. There was even – shockingly – a degree of sympathy on the stiff, somewhat cold faces of the older men, and Wolf had left feeling almost hopeful. Almost.

However, they heard very little for the next several weeks. None of them had expected that they would be given regular updates on the status of the enquiry, but it was difficult, nonetheless, to sit around and wait for news. So when Wolf was called into Headquarters, at Credenhill, he went with a degree of relief; possibly, finally, they were going to get an update on Cub's situation.

He was met by a corporal and taken to a waiting room, where he sat – with as much patience as he could muster, which wasn't a great deal – for about half an hour, trying not to fidget too much. He hadn't felt this nervous – or at least, he hadn't felt this kind of nerves – for a long, long time.

Finally, he was called in to a meeting room, where he was met by three surprisingly senior members of the SAS, who looked at him, rather gravely.

Wolf frowned a little. He had expected there to be some interest, certainly – at least, he had certainly hoped that there would be some interest; even if he had fucked up with the kid, didn't mean that Cub should be dealing with it all by himself, and if he could get some support from the SAS for this, so much the better – but he hadn't expected that the very senior members of the corps were going to get interested.

"Lieutenant." One of them nodded, and Wolf paused for a little, unused to ceremonial occasions, and far from sure whether he should salute or not.

Deciding to err on the side of formality, he saluted, and the most senior gestured him into the room. A chair had been set up for him, in front of the rough semi-circle his superiors had formed with their own chairs, almost as though he was at some kind of informal hearing; he supposed, in a way, he was.

"Since you are the one who reported it to us," one of them, whom Wolf vaguely recognised from the ceremony when they'd officially joined the SAS, and who, from his braid, was the most senior, said, dryly, "We were hoping you could give us a little more intelligence on the Rider situation."

Wolf shifted, rather uncomfortably, in his seat. "What kind of intelligence, sir?"

"Rider sent his suicide note to you, am I right?"

He nodded. "Sir."

"But he hasn't attempted to contact you since?"

"No, sir – not since he left the hospital."

"And you haven't seen him at all? Haven't been able to trace him?"

"No, sir."

"Have you talked to the hospital? What's their stance?"

"Have they tried to contact Rider at all? Do you know if they've had any success?"

"Rider hacked into their system." Wolf said, faintly apologetic. "As far as I can make out, he altered his records to make it look as though he was discharged and fully healthy, and his contact details were fake."

"So we'll get no help from them."

"No, sir, I don't think so." He paused, then said, cautiously, "How helpful are MI6 being, sir?"

The man doing most of the questioning gave him a sharp look, followed by a dry little smile. "'Helpful' is not a word I would use to describe MI6 at the best of times, Lieutenant, and this is far from being the best of times."

"So – we have no intelligence on Rider at all?"

"Very little." The man admitted. "What records MI6 have given us are at best vague and at worst downright misleading. We were hoping you could help us there. What do you know of this – boy's," he looked disapproving, "Operational status?"

"He's – frankly, he's excellent, sir. My unit and I were deployed to a situation on the Franco-Swiss border, near Geneva, nearly three years ago now, where Rider had been stationed. I was reluctant to take him back into the situation – Rider had been stationed there for three weeks beforehand, totally isolated, and I wasn't sure of his mental situation, let alone his physical ability to keep up – but his focus was total, sir. As far as his – job – is concerned… I can see why MI6 are so desperate to keep hold of him. Whatever his mental strength is, he keeps any weaknesses firmly off mission."

"An admirable trait, but obviously not, in this case, a healthy one." Another man said, dryly. "MI6 may have discovered a gem in this _child_, but they're fast running him into the ground, that much is obvious." The man paused. "And – when he was training with you, what was he like?"

"He did all of the exercises without complaining." Wolf said, a little ashamedly. "Quiet – stoic – not one _to_ complain, I think, sir. But – his experiences while training might explain why he's so reluctant to come to us for help now. We weren't exactly – friendly."

Their non-reaction to that little revelation told Wolf that it came as no surprise to them – that they had somehow already known it.

"Yes, your observations are much the same as the training sergeant." One of the men nodded. "Both in regards to Rider's unexpected rate of adaptation and tolerance, but also in regards to the total failure of any attempt to integrate him into K-Unit proper."

Wolf shifted a little in his seat. "Yes, sir. Integration was – a problem."

"So we can be fairly certain that the boy isn't going to attempt to contact you for help." One man said, the faint hint of a question in his tone.

Wolf thought of the hurt, damaged boy in the hospital bed and swallowed. "All due respect, sir, but it took a suicide attempt to make him contact us for the first time in two years, and it didn't go well. I doubt he's going to try again."

* * *

He got back to his flat late that night, and found Snake waiting for him.

"Matt and Neal were here, but we thought there was no point us all waiting." He said, by way of greeting. He paused, for just a second, before saying, a little hesitantly, "So – how'd it go?"

"Fine." Wolf said, shortly.

"What're they doing to help Cub, then?" Snake asked, half-eager, half-worried.

Wolf flicked the kettle on, and leant against the counter with a slight frown on his face. "At the moment, nothing."

Snake's expression was frankly shocked. "But- I thought… I thought they were sympathetic? I thought they were going to help?"

"Oh, they are. But MI6 very much _aren't_."

"They're being obstructive?"

"Super-obstructive, from what the superiors said. MI6 won't give them any records, on Cub, and what they have got is next to no use, even if it _is_ true, which apparently they doubt."

Snake frowned, and hesitated again. "Look, James, I'm not trying to be depressing or anything, but – that kid we saw at St. Thomas's… he was fucked up. You must have seen that, right? And…"

"I wouldn't say he was 'fucked up'." Wolf interrupted, a little harshly. "You make it sound like there's no hope for him."

"James, what if there _isn't_, though?" the other man asked, with surprising gentleness. "I mean, he was screwed up; what's to stop him trying again? Cub's disappeared completely, and there's nothing to say that he hasn't killed himself, a nd just not told anyone. Maybe that's why MI6 is being so obstructive, you know? Maybe they know something we don't. Maybe Cub's already-"

"He's not." Wolf said, brusquely.

"You don't know that."

"No, I don't. But – Dave, MI6… if they wanted to cover up the face that this kid was dead, they could have do a much better job of it than they're doing, even to us. And I don't think Cub would do something like this again, not like that. Not unplanned."

"Suicide _is_ unplanned…"

"Dave, he sent me his suicide note, for god's sake!" Wolf snapped, voice harsh. "What part of that _isn't_ planned!? He made sure that the ID he had on him gave them his name and nothing else, and he planned it so that he _knew_ which hospital he'd end up at. Does that sound unplanned to you?" he shook his head, calming down a little. "Cub might not have got anything else from MI6, but _someone's_ taught him how to plan stuff." He paused, before saying, firmly, and not a little coldly, "I won't believe that kid is dead until I see some solid proof of it."

* * *

And there you have it. Sorry it's not longer, but you'll get an extra long'un next week. Please tell me how you liked it - it's been a bad day, some reviews would cheer me up! (blatant hinting)

-amitai


	7. Chapter 7

Hello there, people!

Well, here we have it... Chapter 7. I rather liked this chapter, so I hope you will as well! Unfortunately, coursework and so on is bearing down on me, so I'm doing the totally logical thing...

...totally ignoring it and writing fanfiction. Yes, I'm subscribing to the time honoured tradition of the Doctrine of Procrastination, and it's working wonders. So far, I've got a whole 12 pages of HIOP 7 written. Doesn't that just delight your hearts?

And yes, the Alex Rider/Chalet School horror is going well. I hope you're happy.

Oh, and another plot bunny just bit, due to my latest, greatest (but weirdly, not NEW-est) obsession - an Alex Rider/Supernatural crossover. I'm so going to hell. But then, I might meet Dean Winchester there, so I shan't complain.

:D

DISCLAIMER: The only thing I own at the moment is my coursework. I even lost my pride writing an Alex Rider/Chalet School crossover...Everything else has been given to my teachers in an attempt to assuage their coursework lust. Even my gold teeth have gone.

* * *

Alex offered Don a quick 'good night' as the man left the garage, responding with a nod and a quick smile to the customary instruction to lock up when he left.

A little over a week ago, Alex had had his cast taken off, though his arm was totally healed – he'd substituted the support of the cast for a Tubey grip, and no one at the garage had thought to question the decision. Don had simply asked – kindly, and not unreasonably – that Alex start work as a mechanic as soon as possible. Though his arm and had were both stiff and a little awkward, Alex hadn't felt that he was in any position to refuse.

He had spent just over a week under Derek's careful eye – ever since he'd got the cast taken off, in fact – before being pronounced as 'competent', and was now given smaller jobs to deal on his own: simple part-replacement, jumpstarting, and swapping tires, nothing that Alex couldn't easily deal with. Occasionally, he was asked to clean out the cars which had come in for a full service, but he was rarely asked to do anything either too menial, or too complicated, and his wage had gone up by nearly fifty pounds, something Alex was eternally grateful for. He didn't quite dare stop with the 'secretarial' side of things, knowing that that was what he had essentially been employed for, and unsure as to whether he was supposed to stop now. Cautiously, he decided that he wasn't about to risk this job by stopping half of it without being told that he was allowed to – so he generally stayed late most nights to deal with the paper work. Don hadn't called him on it.

Staying late every night served another purpose as well, however; his wages, even with the increase, were sufficient for food and travel, but without the fifty pounds from MI6 every month – which had stopped coming – he was finding it more and more difficult to put anything aside, something which was becoming increasingly urgent. He had no doubts that MI6 were still keeping half an eye on him, waiting for the moment when he looked physically fit enough to use again. To that end, he made sure to limp heavily between the house and the Tube station, but he was far from sure how long this situation could last, especially now that his external injuries – bruising, the cast, and all – were fading fast. Saving money for when MI6 used him again was becoming imperative.

However, for the purposes of earning money, staying later than everyone else was perfect; none of the people he worked with – who had begun to like him and get as close to him as he would let them, which was a novel experience for him – saw where he went after he locked up the garage.

To ease his desperation to save money, Alex had started looking for an extra job, and he'd managed to score several shifts a week at a pub local to the garage, using a fake passport he'd scored from Smithers about six months ago and had carefully 'forgotten' to give back. He worked there most nights, from whenever he left the garage, generally around six thirty, for however long they needed him, and he rarely got off before ten thirty. After that came the hour long commute between his house and the area where he worked; this new, extra job had the side-effect of making his days extremely long – he rarely got to bed before at least eleven thirty, or midnight – and he had to be up at five every morning except Sundays, when he often picked up an afternoon shift at the pub. However, the extra money meant that he could afford to eat a little better, at least.

Life was tough, undoubtedly, but he was surviving, and he had learnt the hardest way that that was the most important thing at the moment. Now that he was at least half on his feet again, and he didn't dread each day quite as much, he almost relieved. Certainly, he thought, with black humour, he could always put off killing himself until MI6 put him in a position where he could make it look like an accident.

* * *

"You're here." William, the manager of 'The Goose on the Green', where Alex now worked, gave him a rather harried smile as Alex appeared in the back room of the pub. "You OK?"

Alex nodded. "Yeah. What do you want me to do?"

"Emily gets off at nine thirty – can you do clear up till then? You can take over after her at the bar."

Alex nodded silently, grabbed a cloth, and began on the endless rounds of cleaning and clearing the tables.

At nine thirty, the barmaid, Emily – a cheerful blonde girl, with whom Alex had a warm nodding acquaintance – ended her shift behind the bar, and Alex took over, something he was relatively comfortable with after three weeks. His shift would go on until eleven, tonight, when another boy – a 'real' 18 year old this time, who called himself 'Mac', but whose real name was apparently Michael – would take over, and he, Alex would start the long trek back to his house.

When Alex finally fell into bed that night, at half-twelve, he was knackered – but relatively happy, all the same. Almost independent, almost supporting himself – and MI6 could hardly take the credit for paying his house bills, when they came out of his uncle's money – and without MI6 bothering him for the moment… life was almost good. He would have preferred to have being taking his AS-Levels than working himself half to death at a garage and a pub, but if he had to work, this was good.

* * *

The next morning, Alex nodded at Don, still tired, wishing desperately – as he often did now – that he was asleep, rather than working, and managed to dredge up a smile for Derek. He was already looking forward to his lunch break; he'd taken to sleeping curled up in the office, rather than getting something to eat. Not only did he store up some much nodded sleep, he also saved money on food – as far as Alex was concerned, it was a win-win situation.

"Hey kid!" Don called over to him. "Got something slightly more difficult for you today…"

"Oh?"

"Yeah… someone's really fucked over their car. Idiot thought he could fix it himself, and it's not pretty. Think you can manage it?" Don shrugged. "I'd get someone else to deal with it, but everyone's busy."

Alex shrugged. "I can manage." He said, confidently, and waited until Don was out of earshot before adding, almost under his breath, "I hope…"

Derek, over-hearing him, gave him a quick grin. "Just ask, if you've got any problems. It's not like Don'll fire you for not knowing how to put an engine back together."

Alex gave him a tight smile. "Yeah." He agreed, quietly, without much confidence.

The car he to sort out was given was a mess; Alex worked on it solidly until lunch break, abandoning it at one on the dot, and heading into the little office to sleep. He was still shattered from the combination of late nights, frenetic days, and never quite enough food, and while he was happy – and not a little flattered – at being given a slightly less 'boring' task, it was really taking it out of him.

Once his lunch break was over, he was heading back over to restart work on the car, when he paused, listening half-out-of-sight. The garage was still pretty much empty – Alex made a point of 'arriving' back early, so no one caught him napping and asked any awkward questions – but Derek was there, and it sounded like he was talking to someone.

"…long is it going to take?" a voice Alex didn't recognise asked. Risking a glance round the edge of the doorframe, to determine whether it was totally safe to come out yet – old habits died extremely hard, it seemed, especially when they had been drilled in by MI6 – Alex saw Derek stood by the car he had been working on, talking to another man, presumably the owner, who had his back to Alex and who was, from his stance, annoyed and irritable. For a second, the boy deliberated over it – then retreated fully into the office. He could hear well enough from here, and it was foolish to walk into a conflict he could easily avoid. Just this once, he'd let someone else handle it.

"Don't know." Alex could hear the shrug in Derek's voice. "We've got one of our newer mechanics working on it; it's nothing _too_ difficult," Alex smiled a little, picking up on the faint sarcasm his almost-friend was using, "Nothing he can't handle, certainly. But it's fiddly."

"How so?"

"Well – you took half the engine apart, _sir_. We've got to put it back together."

"And how long is 'putting it back together' going to take?" the man asked, faint sarcasm colouring his own one.

"Nothing less than three days." Derek said, blandly, and Alex twitched a smile, knowing that the other mechanic would have predicted at least a day less if the owner had been a little less sarcastic with him.

"Three days." The other man repeated, slowly. "Just how new _is_ this mechanic?"

Alex smiled, and let Derek deal with the owner, waiting until the man had left before heading over to the car.

Derek gave him a quick smile. "Good lunch?"

Alex spared a thought for his poor, empty stomach, and nodded. "Yeah, not bad. You?"

"Fine till just now. I just dealt with the guy who fucked up this car for you." Derek shrugged, eloquently.

"Yeah, I heard…"

The man gave him a half-hearted glare. "And you didn't bother to come and help me out?"

Alex gave him the nearest he'd got to an impish grin for at least six months. "But you were doing so well…"

Derek was about to reply when the owner of the car in question reappeared in the entrance of the garage. "Look, is there anything can…" Alex and Derek looked at him almost as one. "Cub?!"

Alex stared, sickly, at the owner. "Eagle."

Derek looked between them. "Do you two know each other?" he asked, dryly.

Alex swallowed, trying to bring moisture to a suddenly-dry mouth. "Um…" he cleared his throat, awkwardly. "Yeah. Yeah, we do." He finally managed to tear his eyes away from Eagle. "D'you mind if I take a few minutes off? I'll make it up later…"

Derek shot him a wry smile. "No one else is back yet – I think you've got a couple of minutes."

"Thank you." Alex looked back at Eagle. "Um – uncle? Could you come through here… _please_?"

Eagle followed the kid out to the back of the little garage, still almost completely dazed; of all the places to find the kid, this had to be the one he would never have dreamt of looking in.

"Are you OK?" he asked, quietly, immediately as Cub turned to face him.

Cub turned on him, eyes angry and – scared? "Fine, thank you." he bit out, voice carefully suppressed. "Not that it's any of your business."

"Of course it's my business! Jesus, Cub-"

"It is _none_ of your business." The boy repeated, harshly. "I don't know what the hell you're doing here…"

Eagle held his hands up in an attempt to placate the kid. "Hey, I was just hoping to get my car fixed! But – God, are you _sure_ you're OK? You look…"

"Fuck off." Cub said, angrily. "I don't need you here, prying around about me. I _need_ this job, I'm not going to let you fuck it up for me…"

Eagle looked the boy over. He was taller than he remembered from when he last saw him – but that had been two years ago, and, unless his memory was playing some serious tricks on him, the boy was thinner, too; thinner than any sixteen year old should be, especially in a country like Britain, which was hardly in any difficulties food-wise. There were dark purple shadows under his eyes, which had no right to be here – all in all, Cub looked old, tired, pale, and even slightly ill. The faint traces of what had to have been horrific bruising was still in evidence around his eyes, though it was difficult to distinguish from the lack-of-sleep shadows – and the same traced bruising was echoed along his jaw. Combined with his dirty overalls, the boy looked – vulnerable.

"Cub – you should leave this job, you need…"

He didn't even manage to finish the sentence – and he certainly hadn't expected the fist which hit him an impressive blow to the jaw, though he did manage, instinctively and blindly, to block the second attempt to hit him. "Holy _shit_, Cub, what was that for!?"

The kid stared at him, eyes wide with blown pupils, breathing heavily in what seemed to be a potent, dangerous mix of anger and fear. At that moment, Cub looked like nothing so much as a cornered, scared animal; Eagle stared at him for a long moment, worried and confused.

It was Cub who finally broke the silence. "You have no right to try and tell me what to do." He said, voice fierce but rigidly controlled. "I am _not_ leaving. I want to be here; I _need_ to be here…"

"Cub, you're – you're ill." Eagle said, rather helplessly. "We can help you; honestly, I promise, we'll help you. But you – you need to rest. I mean, you were hit by a car just, what, six weeks ago?"

"Oh, and _now_ you care!?" the boy threw it at him, viciously; Eagle winced. "I've had enough of being _helped_ by people like you, and I have _nothing left to give you_!" he sounded pleading and terrified and helpless, and Eagle could hardly stand it.

"Shit, Cub, I don't want anything from you, I promise." He said, gently, but he didn't get any further.

Cub dragged a hand over his face. "I don't need you – any of you – fucking this up for me."

"I'm not trying to fuck anything up for you; I wasn't even expecting to see you here. But – God, I'm just surprised you're even mobile. I mean, didn't you break anything?"

"It's been five weeks, and I'm a quick healer." Cub returned flatly, no traces of his former emotion left in his voice – somehow, he had managed to get himself under control in the last few moments, and Eagle recognised, with a sudden sinking feeling, that he was unlikely to get anything further out of him. "Look, Eagle, if you've got nothing important to say to me, I need to get back to work. I'll get your car done for you, but please." He looked up and met the man's eyes squarely, warning clear. "Stay away from me."

Eagle tried to say something further, but Cub didn't wait to hear it, firmly ushering him out and not allowing him the chance to say anything.

Once Eagle was gone, Derek re-approached, putting a hand on Alex's shoulder, and saying, concernedly,

"What was that about? Are you OK? Who was he?"

"Oh…" Alex paused, before giving Derek a quick smile, and saying, as calmly as he could, "Yeah, I'm fine. That was just my – uncle. We don't get on all that well."

* * *

And there you have it. Hope you enjoyed - do tell!

I have English coursework to do - it's a bitch, I tell ya - and reviews would make me smile.

Yeah, it's blatant. Sue me.

-ami xxx


	8. Chapter 8

Dearest readers, I live!

I'm truly sorry for not updating last week, it was incredibly hectic... I didn't sleep from Sunday night till Wednesday writing my English coursework, and then passed out very dramatically during prep time, only to be woken by my matron screaming because I'd had a nosebleed and looked VERY dramatic passed out on my floor covered in blood. (grin) When I do a thing, I REALLY do a thing. And it was all very Supernatural-esque.

Sorry. The moral of the story is - surviving on caffeine is bad, kids! 

Anyway, I'm now on holiday, but A-Level revision is biting me in the ass, so please don't hold your breath - or bug me incessantly - for updates, because while I would LOVE to be able to write fanfiction constantly, I just can't. People demanding updates with menaces doesn't make me feel any better, I promise you.

So, a huge vote of thanks as always to **Von**, my poor, long-suffering friend, who puts up with all my madness, and beats me through the difficult stages of all my many and varied fanfictions without complaint, and to **xaritomene**, who just beats me. (grin) And is always there with tea and a comforting word when I most need one, and with a kick up the backside when I need one of them. Her timing is impeccable. 

DISCLAIMER: oh, yeah, of course it's mine. Duh. (sarcasm)

* * *

While Eagle was trying to get through to Alex, a very different meeting was taking place, at 10 Downing Street.

"Prime Minister."

"Colonel Markham." The Prime Minister inclined his head a little, instead of smiling, offering the SAS' delegate a tight smile and a seat. "It's good to see you."

"And you; thank you for seeing me on such – short notice."

The Prime Minister's smile tightened even further. "It's no trouble." Both of them were well aware that the SAS had been trying to organise this meeting for the past three weeks; he had been putting them off because he neither trusted, nor really liked, the various branches of the Secret Services in England, and, for him, the SAS were close enough.

"Of course. I trust you and your wife are well? How is the baby?"

"I'm very well, thank you." He returned, a little sourly. That was one of the reasons like this he didn't like the secret services; they always knew and remembered far too much. "Cheryl is fine; and William is doing very well." He paused. "And yourself? How is your son?" If Markham was going to try and intimidate him with personal knowledge, two could play at that game.

"I'm fine. Harry was killed in Iraq last week."

The Prime Minister winced a little at that, but managed to hide it. "I'm extremely sorry."

"Thank you." Markham nodded at him, rather stiffly. "As I remember, you sent my wife and me a rather nice letter about it."

"Do military personnel get the same letter as civilians?"

"No – you wrote to us personally." 

The wince was rather more pronounced that time. "How can I help you, Colonel?"

Markham paused. "I'm sure you remember Alex Rider, Prime Minister." he said, carefully.

The man frowned a little. "I don't recognise the name, no…"

"The teenager MI6 have – employed. Extremely useful two years ago, in that unpleasant incident with Scorpia, you may remember."

Oh!" The lines on his face tightened a little in disapproval. "Yes, I remember the boy. What about him?"

"Bit of a PR disaster if his – situation – got out, don't you think?" Markham asked casually.

"You could say." The Prime Minister said, tersely. "Colonel, is this some kind of attempt to blackmail me? Because-"

The other man smiled, completely without humour. "Of course not, Prime Minister. No, it's simply that we thought you might welcome the chance to deal with such a potential threat. After all, as you so admirably pointed out, he could easily be used to blackmail the government."

The Prime Minister leant forwards. "Go on?"

"As we see it, we have found a situation which will serve two purposes – kill two birds with one stone, as it were. Firstly, it will get rid of a potential embarrassment to the government, as well as deal with a case of what we believe amounts to little more than child abuse. And secondly, it provides an opportunity to deal with SIS. I'm sure you'll agree that, ever since that situation in Venezuela, they have been getting – dangerously confident."

"And Alex Rider is a way of dealing with them?"

"We think so, yes?"

"How?"

"Well, sir – we have intelligence that Rider tried to kill himself a little under five weeks ago. We have a degree of jurisdiction over the boy, since he trained with us, and, more than that, was registered with us, to throw anyone off should they try and investigate him." Markham himself leant forwards, for once abandoning his rigidly upright posture, something the Prime Minister had never seen him do before. "When we found this out, naturally, we contacted MI6, to get records on him; they haven't yet refused to give them to us, but they are being deliberately obstructive. Firstly, you can force them to give us the records – something of a humiliation. But, Prime Minister, it's obvious that SIS have driven this boy to the point of suicide; surely that counts as child abuse?" 

He nodded, somewhat shocked. "Um – yes, of course…" He'd had no idea that the boy was still being used by MI6.

"Obviously, this can't go through normal channels, but surely the gains of getting involved in this – case – personally far outweigh the difficulties of it?" He paused. "Not to mention, of course, that this boy is obviously exceptional, and is privy to any number of national secrets. Ensuring his loyalty can't fail to be a wise course of action." It was his killer blow, and he sat back to watch it take root.

The Premier visibly wavered. "Remind me of the gains?" he said, slowly

Markham curbed the desire to curl his lip. "The government is protected from what has the potential to be an enormous scandal, and deals with the problem of an over-confident security service, sir. Not to mention cementing the loyalty of someone we firmly believe could be extremely useful in the future."

The man nodded, slowly. "I would have to look into it further of course…"

"Of course Prime Minister." Markham nodded, earnestly. "That's our problem. We've been trying to get MI6 to hand over their files on him, but so far our successes have been negligible."

He received a sharp look. "MI6 are withholding information?"

"Sir." Markham inclined his head. He could almost see the Prime Minister turning it over in his head. 

"This would be more in the nature of research than actual – action, am I correct?" the man said, slowly.

"Exactly, sir. But… well. We are not a police state; MI6 have no right to be holding it back. And if they refuse to give it to you, then you are perfectly within your rights to go to MI5 over their heads. If MI6 are being difficult, then it's a matter of internal security. And that's the last thing they would want, of course." And the SAS were far from unaware that the current government was uneasy around the security services, particularly MI6; a way to subdue them would likely not be rejected.

The Prime Minister gave him a long, silent look. "And then?"

"When we know the facts, sir, we can go on from there. Until then, anything else is speculation, and little more than a waste of time."

"Right." He paused. "I'm willing to cooperate on this, then. I'll contact you when we've made the first move. Is that what you were wanting?"

"Yes, sir – thank you."

Markham was nearly at the door before the Prime Minister called after him. "I suppose you have spoken to the boy about this? He's been exploited enough, I think…"

Markham met his eyes, evenly, and smiled a little. "Of course, sir."

* * *

Eagle called Wolf the moment he left the garage, and was certain he was out of earshot. "James?"

"What?"

"Charming as every." Eagle half-grinned, half-grimaced – no small feat.

"Get to the point." The other man snapped.

"I've found him."

There was a short pause, before Wolf said, rather curtly, "Cub?" it was testament to how invested Wolf was in this that his mind went straight to the boy.

"Yeah."

"How in the name of God did you do that?"

Eagle grinned a little, despite the way it highlighted the pain in his cheek where Cub had hit him. "By accident, if you'll believe it."

"Well – good, either way. For god's sake, don't leave him, alright?" 

"I kind of had to, or get done for stalking the kid, James…"

"I'm not asking you to hang around in dark alleyways looking shady, Neal, I'm just asking you to keep sight of him so we don't lose him again!"

"I don't think he's going anywhere." Eagle said, rather distantly, remembering the way Cub had flared up at the simply suggestion that he leave his job. "he was pretty firm about staying exactly where he was."

"Why?" 

"He's working in a garage near where I live."

"So he must live near you. Look, wait for him, follow him home when he leaves, and we'll come and meet you later. Ring if you've got any problems."

Neal was about to protest, but his team-mate, with his near-habitual abruptness, had already rung off.

Four and a half hours later, Eagle was still waiting for Cub to appear; all the other mechanics had left – including the man who was, Eagle had gleaned from watching the place for half a day, the owner – but Cub hadn't appeared. 

An hour after that, Eagle was pretty certain that he'd missed the kid – that Cub had somehow given him the slip, and stood up from the little café he'd been sitting in for the past two hours. In the fuss of paying his bill, and gathering up all his belongings, he managed to miss the boy slip out the garage, carefully locking the place up, and heading down the street in a dead run.

* * *

And there you have it. Short, I know, but all of these chapters are short... (sigh) I never thought it would be a relief to write long chapters again!

HIOP 7 - sorry, Hell Is Other People Chapter 7... I actually CALL the damn thing Hiop in my head - should be out soon, by about Friday or Saturday, and I'm still slogging away at the set up for my Yassen/Alex one, so look to the east for them, my friends!

I've gotta stop reading Gothic fiction. "look to the East" indeed.

Right! I hope you all enjoyed it, and please review! 97 people have this on story alert...is it really so difficult to drop me a line? go on... reviewers get cookies and milk.

Lol,

-amitai


	9. Chapter 9

Dearest readers,

It has recently come to my attention that I am, in fact, made of win. It's taken me a while to come to terms with this, but I'm now certain of it. I have - wait for it - downloaded a whole load of podcasts from iTunes in French and Spanish, and I survived 5 days in Madrid speaking Spanish, AND I just helped my parents to organise the repairs on our house. Which since we live in France means that it was all in French. Yes, I am made of win.

Kinda. My French and Spanish research for my A-Level orals ent going so well, so if any of you happen to be experts on La Carte Scolaire, Michelle Alliot-Marie or Rama Yade, OR Gibraltar, or Las Elecciones '08... feel free to share your knowledge...

I'm sorry that this chapter is a week late, when I promised that nothing short of a major natural disaster would stop me updating - my trip to Madrid had to be organised and then took place, so I'm sure you can all understand that fanfiction took a bit of a backseat... By the way, Madrid is AMAZING. The Prado in particular; they had an exhibition on 19th century art which was mindblowingly good... I know NOTHING about art, but they gave a really good booklet to go with the exhibition, and I learnt so much, and the art was amazing...

...Being the total tourist I am, I now have a 'Museo del Prado' T-shirt. Intellectual one-up-man-ship at it's best.

On the subject of everyone understanding that fanfiction took a bit of backseat - and I HATE how often I've had to say this, so please, the majority of you can ignore this, because the greater part of you wonderful, kind readers are very tolerant and understanding - but, let's get this clear once and for all. I am NOT providing a government service here, people. I update when I can, or, to be blunt, even when I WANT to. I enjoy writing and I'm thrilled that people like what I write, but I'm not - as my dear friend Von so brilliantly put it - a Fanfic vending machine. Please, quit the Private Messages, OK?

Dedicated, as always, to **Von** who puts up with me so well, and **xaritomene** who is as mad as I am, and helps me to feel half-way normal. Most of the time.

DISCLAIMER: I thank God fairly regularly that I don't own Alex Rider. I get none of the money for writing fanfiction, but escape all of the responsibility as well...

* * *

_Four and a half hours later, Eagle was still waiting for Cub to appear; all the other mechanics had left – including the man who was, Eagle had gleaned from watching the place for half a day, the owner – but Cub hadn't appeared. _

_An hour after that, Eagle was pretty certain that he'd missed the kid – that Cub had somehow given him the slip, and stood up from the little café he'd been sitting in for the past two hours. In the fuss of paying his bill, and gathering up all his belongings, he managed to miss the boy slip out the garage, carefully locking the place up, and heading down the street in a dead run._

* * *

Alex was all too aware that Eagle was watching him, and he couldn't help but wonder how much of an idiot the man thought he was – it wasn't like he was being particularly subtle – and after a couple of days trusting to luck, he came up with a strategy. The alarm he had to set every day before he left gave the person who locked up a two minutes to get out, which gave him just enough time to run to the back door and get out that way. He was careful to check that Eagle was always at the front of the garage, and that he hadn't clued into his strategy, but so far, he seemed oblivious to it, something Alex couldn't help but be grateful for.

He managed to give Eagle the slip like that for almost a week, putting in as many shifts at the pub as he could. After all, as he saw it, Eagle's visit could only mean one thing – his MI6-free time was coming to an end, and he needed as much money as he could save. If he could, he would have stopped working at the garage altogether, but he was far from sure he'd find any more work, and he didn't want to let Don and the rest of them down.

Ironically enough, though, it was because of his increased shifts at the pub that Eagle found him again.

* * *

Eagle rang Wolf at seven the Friday after he'd 'found' Cub, thoroughly depressed.

"Lost him again." He told his team-mate, disgustedly. "I swear to God, James, it's like he just disappears – like he _evaporates_ at the end of the day, or something."

Wolf sighed. "Fine. Can you – I don't know… talk to his boss, or something? See if we can find an 'in' there?"

Eagle shook his head, despite knowing the other man couldn't see it. "No. Cub already feels threatened by us, the last thing we want to do is make him see us in an even worse light."

"Right." Wolf agreed, tiredly, before heaving another sigh. "Look, call it a day for now. We've been looking for the kid for weeks now, we're probably not going to find him tonight. Why don't we all go out for a drink or something? All four of us. We've all been so stressed over Cub recently, it'd probably do us some good to get out. Clear our heads."

Eagle paused for a long moment. "OK, who are you, and what have you done with James?" Wolf made a disgruntled noise, but Eagle cut him off before he could start his protest in earnest. "Seriously, James, I've known you for nearly three years and that's the first time you've ever suggested 'going out for a drink'."

"Well, I'm suggesting it now." Wolf returned, rather sharply, but Eagle could practically hear the uncomfortable shrug in his tone.

"Fine, OK." He shrugged; he wasn't about to go looking a gift horse in the mouth. "There's a pub near me, The Goose on the Green…"

"I was thinking about my local pub, it does a nice-" Wolf started, but Eagle interrupted almost immediately.

"James. I've been on a stake out for the past five days, on your orders, during my downtime. The least you can do is shift your arse over to _my_ local pub." Wolf grunted his agreement, sounding thoroughly pissed off about the entire situation. Eagle grinned. "Oh, and, James?"

"What?"

"You're buying."

* * *

He met his three team-mates half an hour later at a corner table in the little pub.

"Nice place." Snake commented peaceably, and Eagle just nodded.

"Thanks."

They kept the conversation deliberately light, all of them steering clear of the subject of Cub – the elephant at the table, so to speak – by tacit agreement. It was only when they were half-way through their first, and only, pint that the 'excitement' started.

A slim blond boy, wearing the pub's 'uniform' of a black shirt and a long black apron tied around his hips, had been clearing the tables over the other side of the pub. Fox happened to glance up as the boy passed their table to take the dirty glasses back to the kitchen; the boy just happened to look down at them. Fox spilt half of his remaining beer over Eagle's jeans.

"Matt, what the hell-" Eagle started, indignantly, but was cut off by Fox himself.

"Cub?" All eyes flew to the boy, who was already trying to make his escape when Fox grabbed his wrists. The tray full of glasses wobbled, but thankfully didn't fall.

It was undoubtedly Cub – a tiredly, older, thinner Cub, but still indubitably Cub.

Now a rather pissed off Cub, if his expression was anything to go by.

"Are you lot stalking me, or something?" he asked, voice tight with sheer frustration, balancing the tray in one hand and shaking off Fox's grip on his other wrist. "Can't you just leave me be for a couple of _days_?!" His eyes flickered to Eagle as he said this, and the man reluctantly admitted, if only to himself, that he could, maybe, have been a little subtler.

He shook his head, quickly, trying to allay the kid's evident suspicions. "No. I- we.. this is my local pub."

Cub looked at him for a long, uncomfortable moment, before shrugging and turning away. "I'll send someone out to clear up the mess." He told them, tersely, nodding at the beer Fox had spilt.

The moment he disappeared, Eagle hissed, "Quick. Someone go out and cover the back entrance – I'll wait out the front."

If the other men thought he was overreacting, they didn't mention it; there would be time for explanations afterwards. They only had a specific window of time in which to act.

So when Alex tried to slip unnoticed out the back, having cut his shift short by arrangement with William, he found Wolf lounging indolently against the opposite wall, hands in his jeans pockets, one foot up against the bricks, which he used to push himself away from the wall.

"Nice try, Cub. But a bit sloppy for MI6, don't you think?"

Alex treated him to a poisonous glare, but Wolf just raised an eyebrow, the beginnings of a sardonic smile lurking around the corners of his mouth.

Alex only just bit back a swearword. "Why can't you lot just _leave me alone_?!" he asked, somehow managing to keep voice low when each word was heavy with defeat, the expression on that too-thin, too-pale face more exhausted than Wolf could look at comfortably.

"We're just trying to help, Cub." He said, taking a step towards the boy, who immediately took a step back, hands coming up instinctively to warn him off.

"Yeah, help." He said, with a hollow laugh. "Like I haven't heard that one before."

"Cub…" Wolf began, racking his brains for something to say, some way to get through to the boy.

"Stop calling me that and I might just believe whatever shit you're about to try and feed me." Alex shot back, immediately.

Wolf frowned; he had no idea where to go from here, and it was making him antsy. "OK – we just want to help you, _Alex_."

There was no reaction from the boy, who remained pale, and unmoved in the dark alley, lithe frame taut with suspicion. The lips drew back in a painful mockery of a smile, totally without humour, his teeth glinting yellow in the sickly light from the streetlamp. Wolf realised, with a start, that the boy looked practically feral, and wondered for the first time whether their 'rescue mission' had started too late – whether there was even anything of the normal teenager in Cub to save.

Cub's voice was soft. "Once more, with conviction – James."

To a normal person, it would have looked as though Wolf remained as truly impassive as Alex had when Wolf used _his_ real name – but Cub had been trained by MI6 since he was fourteen, and by his uncle for long before. So when he gave a truly chilling little chuckle, Wolf knew exactly what it was the teenager was mocking. If Cub had walked away from him at that moment, Wolf genuinely didn't know whether he would have been able to follow him.

Luckily, Fox appeared at the mouth of the alleyette, and broke the moment, Cub was no longer a frightening, experienced operative who had managed to get the intellectual drop on Wolf, but a tired, white-faced boy, vulnerable and very young, on the offensive to stop people getting past his defences.

"Wolf." Fox said, breaking the awkward, dangerous moment, his voice laced with confusion, and not a little impatience. "What are you doing?"

Wolf waved a hand at him, and shrugged. Squaring his shoulders, he turned back to Cub, and said, firmly, "C'mon, Cub. Home."

"What are you, strays?" The boy shot back, but it was half-hearted at best. He held Wolf's gaze for a moment or two, before simply nodding. It was an utterly defeated little gesture, and Wolf frowned for a moment – the kid shouldn't have to look like that, _no_ kid should have to look like that, and it sat badly with him that a government he supported and fought for could have let something as serious as this go anything like this far – before steeling himself and following Cub out of the alley.

* * *

From the Tube station, Alex led them to the nicely kept house a few streets away.

In all honesty, he couldn't be at all surprised that K-Unit had found him again – Eagle had been hanging around the garage for days and he obviously lived in this area, it was only a matter of time before they found him again. It was more of a surprise that he'd never met anyone he knew while working at the pub before. Either way, he'd had a couple of days to prepare for this meeting and he was ready for them now; he wouldn't be wrong-footed the way he had been last time with Eagle.

Reaching the house, he retrieved the key from it's hiding place under the rosemary bush by the door, and let them all in.

"Make yourselves at home." He told them, rather sardonically. "Tea? Coffee?"

They all opted for tea, and Alex ushered them firmly into the kitchen, where they all stood, looking awkward while trying to appear intimidating.

"Oh, sit down." Alex snapped, while the kettle boiled. "Who takes sugar?"

The conversation over their tea was predictable – why had he tried to commit suicide? He'd had a particularly rough assignment. It had torn him up for a bit. Didn't MI6 try to help? Well, yeah, but there was only so much they could do. Was he going to try again? It wasn't exactly on his 'To-Do' List, no.

Alex had been able to predict the questions, and so had been able to prepare his answers – safe, factual, dispassionate answers, nothing which would arose their sympathy and engender any further interference – he didn't want to put a foot wrong, and find himself cut adrift from MI6s dubious protection.

But – K-Unit didn't seem to be too pro-MI6. It was a thought Alex shook off for the moment to consider later when he had the time to turn the situation over in his head properly and could be sure he was coming to the correct answers. Either way, he didn't trusts them any further than he could throw them, so they weren't going to be hearing the truth from him any time soon. Not until he could be certain of them.

He finally got them out of the house at a quarter past eleven, and watched them go with a sigh.

Another obstacle safely navigated.

* * *

The four of them met the next morning at the HQ at Wolf's flat, to discuss their next move.

"We need to tell the high-ups that we've found him." Snake said, sensibly enough. "So they can decide where to go from here."

Eagle shook his head. "No; Cub'd freak. We need to talk to him – establish a… a.. rapport."

Fox raised an eyebrow. "A 'rapport'?" he mocked gently, and Eagle shrugged

"First word I could think of which fitted."

Wolf nodded, slowly, apparently ignoring this little byplay. "Fair enough. And for what it's worth, I agree with Neal. I say we inform Command that we've found him, and strongly suggest that we take the next move in trying to establish a," his eyes flickered momentarily to Eagle, and his lips twitched into a brief smile, "Rapport with him. The kid obviously needs emotional support, and – well, we might not be the most sensitive people in the world, but we can least lay the groundwork for some kind of support base, right?"

He looked around. Fox and Snake nodded, and Eagle gave him a quick shrug and a smile. "I'm in. Though we'd better not start today, or you'll be totally useless, Jamie." Wolf gave him a confused, impatient look. "You've just used up your entire word quota for the day."

Wolf felt entirely justified for throwing his cushion at him.

They decided that their first course of action should be to go and check on Cub – "we should really start calling the kid 'Alex'." Wolf said, firmly, recalling his conversation with the boy from the night before – and they all dutifully trooped over to the house Alex had taken them to the day before.

Ringing the doorbell, they waited for a good few minutes ("He's probably at work…" Eagle pointed out, voice just a little smug, and Wolf retorted that they could always check the garage after this; they were just covering all the possibilities), and were just about to ring again when the door opened to reveal an old man, in an ancient beige, moth-eaten cardigan, and carpet slippers which had apparently once been scarlet, but which were now much the same colour as the cardigan, and about as moth-eaten.

"What do you want" he asked, frowning blearily at them, "If you're here about the TV licence, I've told you, I ent got a bloody TV…"

"We're not hear about the TV licence, Mr. er…" Snake said, soothingly, shooting Wolf a confused glance, and receiving the standard "buggered if I know" shrug in return from his team mate.

"Estherson. Roy Estherson." The old man told them, a little wheezily. "Well, what _do_ you want then?"

"We're here for you – grandson? Alex?"

"Ent got a grandson." Estherson informed them, firmly. "Never married." He suddenly gave them an uncomfortably shrewd glance. "Which little blighter's been passing himself off as me grandson, then?"

Wolf frowned, darkly. It was starting to become unpleasantly clear what had happened. "Alex Rider?" he asked, in one last ditch effort. "D'you know him _at all_?"

"Never heard of him." Estherson told him, promptly.

"Right." Snake, ever the diplomat, said, apologetically. "We're sorry to have wasted your time then, Mr. Estherson."

Estherson muttered something which smelt strongly of whiskey and sounded distinctly uncomplimentary, before shutting the door in their faces.

On the doorstep, they stood for a moment, looking helplessly at each other – it was back to Square One with a bump.

Eagle summed it up for all of them. "Well – shit."

* * *

Colonel Andrew Markham was having a frankly terrible day. His meeting the day before with the Prime Minister concerning the Rider child had gone well – surprisingly well in fact. But everywhere he looked, there were dead-ends.

Markham had been assigned this situation for several reasons. He knew when to tell it straight, and when to talk in half-truths and manipulations – he knew how to get things done – and, despite all appearances to the contrary, he was a sincere philanthropist. It helped that he was under no illusions concerning his current Prime Minister. He had been the SAS' unofficial liaison with Number 10 for several years now, and he knew how to get things done.

Appealing to the PM's terror of bad publicity, allowing him to feel that he was saving face, as well as preserving a national asset, _and_ taking down an organisation he perceived to be a threat – that was the way to work. If there was anything Markham had learnt about politicians over the years, it was that they never did anything for one reason alone; it was never enough. This time, though, Markham had the wherewithal to get things moving in the Rider boy's favour, and he had used everything he had shamelessly.

His own boy, his only child, had been killed by governmental incompetence, and he was damned if he was going to sit by and let them kill off someone else's.

So he had been busy pulling every string he had, in the government, the Ministry of Defence, Child Protection Services, Public Records, even MI5. There were several leads which he religiously followed, only to come to several frustrating dead-ends. MI6 had done a (deliberately?) poor job of completely erasing the boy from the records, but a frighteningly thorough one of keeping all information to an absolute minimum. As far as the public were concerned, Alex Rider didn't exist. A little more digging showed an Alex Rider who fitted the description of the boy he knew they were dealing with, an Alex Rider who had been living in an orphanage near St. Catherine's Docks for two years.

John and Helen Rider didn't appear to have any children; Alex's relationship with them had disappeared, and Markham, who had known John and his kind, pretty wife a little, vowed to set that right as soon as he could.

However, for all his vows and promises, by 6.30 that night, he was ready to throw it in for the rest of the day and start afresh tomorrow – when the phone rang.

"Markham."

"Colonel Andrew Markham?"

"Speaking. Who is this?"

"Timothy Smithers, Q-Section, MI6."

Markham sat a little straighter in his chair. "How can I help you, Mr. Smithers?"

"Well, a little bird from MI5 told me that you were looking for information on one Alex Rider."

"That's right." Markham agreed, a little warily.

"I just thought you might welcome a little help, dear boy…"

* * *

And there it is. The long awaited chapter. I hope you enjoyed! Oh, and this week, reviewers get peanut M&Ms for reviewing.; I have a big bag of 'em Those of you with nut allergies can have Yorkie bars.

-amitai


	10. Chapter 10

Well, readers, darlings, I know that you've been waiting for this chapter for a long time, and I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I don't have great news for you over this story. Don't worry, it's not being discontinued or anything, but - PLEASE READ the AN at the end of the chapter.

So... the job-hunt goes on apace, and I had a trial shift at Lush yesterday, and an interview with Molton Brown on Wednesday! (beams) On the other hand, I don't think they're going to employ me, especially because if I get a job, the first thing I have to say is "I'm really sorry, but I need this weekend off" - so I can... wait for it... GO AND SEE DAVID TENNANT IN HAMLET!! (faints)

Anyway. Sorry. (clears throat) I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend and that this story lives up to it's reputation. It's an Alex-Lite Chapter, I'm afraid, but he should be in the next one... but read the end AN for more details about the next chapter. Enjoy!

DISCLAIMER: Getting the money together to buy the books was a struggle. Please.

* * *

The next morning, Markham and Smithers met for a 'working breakfast' at the Marriott Hotel opposite the Houses of Parliament – unknowingly a few feet away from where Alex had tried to kill himself. Markham made a point of being there before his 'source', and was sat at a table waiting for the man by the time Smithers heaved himself through the door.

He'd heard a little about MI6s resident genius, but had never met him, and was a little surprised to see a man of such extraordinary girth, though he was far too professional to let it show on his face. Standing, he held out a hand to him.

"Mr. Smithers – I'm so glad you could make it."

Smithers shook his hand, with a surprisingly firm grip, and smiled at him. "My dear Colonel, I'm delighted to meet you. I'm simply thrilled you agreed to meet me."

"The pleasure's all mine."

They both ordered orange juice and a full breakfast, before starting on the real business of their meal. Smithers paused, before saying, quietly, "Colonel Markham, I'm sure you understand that talking to Alex would be your best course of action right now. He's been – very badly treated, and the last thing he needs to feel is that you are trying to manipulate him in the same way as Alan Blunt."

Markham took a mouthful of bacon, chewed and swallowed, thinking over his response. Regarding Smithers for a few moments, he said, slowly. "Ah… now, there, Mr. Smithers, I was hoping you could do me a favour."

"In what way?"

"Since you know Alex far better than anyone affiliated with my organisation," they were both careful to avoid mentioning any names – the last thing they wanted to do was give even the most casual of eavesdroppers any cause to pay proper attention to their conversation, "I was wondering whether you would be willing to… make the first move."

"You would like me to get in touch with him?" he paused. "I'm perfectly willing to call him, but I warn you, he's not likely to react well."

"Oh?" Markham frowned, genuinely surprised. "I assumed… from all your interest in him, I assumed you knew him well."

"Better than many," Smithers' mouth quirked wryly, "But not well. My – position – didn't encourage much intimacy."

"No, I suppose not." He paused, taking another mouthful of his meal, before putting his fork down and resuming his slight frown. "Do you have any suggestions as to how we should approach the situation, Mr. Smithers?"

Smithers paused. "Any attempts on my part to call him – coming so long after his attempt – would be viewed with extreme suspicion, don't you think?" This was an altogether different man to the one he had talked to on the phone, Markham decided, less flowery and less indecisive. His insight into the Rider child would hopefully be invaluable. "He would see them as an attempt on the part of my employers to regain contact with him, and I think that viewpoint should be discouraged."

"I agree completely." Markham nodded. "So – your suggestion would be…?"

"I understand you have a unit watching him?" Smithers asked, sipping at his orange juice, and deliberately not looking at Markham.

"Yes." He acknowledged, a little startled.

"At the moment, Alex is probably identifying everyone who had anything to do with MI6 as a threat. So, Colonel, I genuinely think the best thing to do would be for you yourself to try and meet him." He gave Markham a disarmingly candid look. "I'm sure you can understand the reasoning behind that."

Every time he had to make a reply, he ended up feeling like Smithers was about four steps ahead of him, anticipating every move he made. "Yes." He said, simply. "And what about the unit we have on him at the moment?"

Smithers considered the problem for a few moments. "They'll have a hard time getting through to him." He said, finally. "But I think… in time…Alex could come to rely on them. But they need to be interacting with him, not simply watching him; and Alex indubitably knows they're there, Colonel. He's our best, after all."

"That good?" Markham asked, mildly.

"Better." Smithers told him, succinctly. "You'll never meet anyone like Alex."

"Then I look forward to it."

"The best plan of action is probably to have K-Unit," he acknowledged Markham's still-more startled look with an impatient flap of the hand, "contact him, and try to get them to explain things to him, calmly and carefully. And to leave nothing out." He gave Markham a pointed look. "Anything unpleasant which has to be done, any manipulation you have to make to improve his situation, Alex needs to know about it. You may think you're leaving it out to protect him, but as far as Alex is concerned, it's lying by omission. For Alex, there's no such thing as leaving things out to protect him. If someone hasn't told him something, it always ends up hurting him. Remember that, Colonel."

"I will do." He said, calmly, pausing to think Smithers' suggestions over. "It seems a sound plan. I'll call them in, explain it to them."

"That seems the most reasonable to me. But, of course, dear boy, it's your show." He paused. "Indulge me, though, Colonel – what exactly _are_ your plans? And when this is over, how exactly to you intend to proceed?"

"Our aims in the short-term, Mr. Smithers, are relatively simple …"

* * *

The rest of the meal was fairly straightforward, and they finally finished going over the SAS' aims and methods to help Alex, and it wasn't until the end that Smithers handed over what would prove to be the most useful outcome of their meeting. He had brought a briefcase with him, and now pulled out an innocuous manila file, handing it over to Markham with a serious look.

"This is all the information I have on Alex, including his recent hospital records. I hope it's useful." He said, quietly. "Everything I have found out about him, everything I could get from the databases, it's all in there." He paused. "Should anything – happen – to it," he added, quietly, and Markham knew he was about to hear a threat phrased in the politest possible way, "You will find that the teenager it refers to does not exist." He shrugged, and patted his lips with a napkin. "They didn't do too thorough a job of erasing him from all records – they need to be able to find him if he was hospitalised, after all – but the information in that file refers to the child Alex really is, not the persona which has been created for him."

With that, Smithers stood. "Colonel, it was a pleasure to meet you. If you have any further need of me, please don't hesitate to contact me."

Markham stood, and shook his hand – and it was only after the other man had left that he realised Smithers had left him with the bill.

* * *

Heading back to his office, he realised he was about to have a busy few weeks ahead of him if he was going to sort the Rider boy's situation out satisfactorily. John Rider had been a valuable asset to his organisation, and Markham had no doubt that his superiors' main reasons for trying to improve their ties with Alex Rider were anything but philanthropic. Had he shared those views, things could simply have deteriorated for Rider the moment he was fully in the SAS' clutches. As it was, Markham intended to sort things out satisfactorily for all concerned.

From all his experience, Markham knew that the most important part of any situation was not to end up light on intelligence, so his first action was to read through the file Smithers had given him, making a note of the most salient points. The folder made for an interesting – if somewhat chilling – read. Smithers had included a description of every assignment the boy had ever had, which were frightening in their sheer number. Their details would keep the most hardened agent awake at night – racketeering, drug smuggling, child exploitation, slavery… it seemed as though Alex Rider had been involved in every single example of humanities worst activities.

Along with his mission reports, the invaluable file included transcripts of the boy's debriefings and his medical situation at the end of each mission. At no point in the file did Markham see a psych evaluation.

To date, the boy had completed just over twenty three successful missions, failing just one, and had been sent all over the world. His achievements were simply… staggering.

Stupidly, Markham had assumed that Smithers had been exaggerating when he had said that the Rider boy was the best MI6 had. Compared to a normal operative's average ratio of four successes to one failure, this child set a terrifying 'best score' of twenty three to one. Dimly, Markham wondered what the retribution was if the boy ever failed.

Suspending his own reaction to the transcripts and reading a little less subjectively, Markham could see a worrying lack of self-preservation in the boy's actions. His medical records were impressively, frighteningly long, and his debriefings were always blasé about any injury he himself had received. The only remorse he seemed to feel was for the people who ended up dead during a mission of his, and though this indication of humanity was welcome it was also a worrying indication of where Rider – consciously or unconsciously – placed himself in his own eyes.

Laying the folder down for a moment, Markham reviewed what he now knew of the boy. Exploited immediately after the death of an apparently much-loved uncle – Smithers' notes had been sickeningly clear on the circumstances of the boy's first 'job' – and carelessly, even recklessly, deployed ever since, without the slightest thought for his future, his health, or even his life. It really was no wonder the boy had decided to try and commit suicide.

Evidently, something was going to have to be done, particularly as regarded the child's education, since it was that which was going to keep him down. Any sixteen year old who could survive what this one had – anyone who could be considered MI6's top agent before he got out of his teens – was obviously brilliant, but his marks did nothing to reflect that. MI6 had sabotaged any of his chances for any kind of future outside their own organisation, and knowing what he did of Alan Blunt, Markham had no doubt that every move had been calculated for MI6's best advantage.

On the other hand, MI6 was going to find itself with a formidable enemy in the form of the SAS, backed as they now were by the Ministry of Defence and the Prime Minister himself. It was a fight Markham knew everyone on his organisation had wanted to avoid, but one which he also knew they had no intention of losing. Blunt's tactical genius was one thing; his apparently growing egomania was quite another.

Pushing those thoughts away, Markham looked back down at the file, reading, with a rather derisive twist to his lips, some of the more recent school reports Smithers had somehow got hold of and had added to his file. "_Rarely present… marks reflect level of attendance rather than aptitude… when present, performs beyond all reasonable expectation… an outstandingly good mind let down by an outstandingly bad attendance record…_' – they all said much the same thing.

His school record mentioned two calls to the Child Protection Services, both of which had not only failed, but had failed spectacularly. Transcripts of his meetings with the social worker had had been assigned – and Markham refused to wonder how Smithers had got hold of all this, not when it was so useful – proved that the Rider boy had lied outrageously, though convincingly, to hide the truth. Gang involvement had been suggested, though bullying had evidently been firmly ruled out; a rather wry addition to his record noted that a group of sixth form boys had attempted to bully the boy and that two of them had broken bones, one had lost a tooth, and the remaining two had bruises which would keep them out of trouble, and off the football pitch, for some time.

Rider, it was noted, had a black eye, and a 'valid claim of self-defence, if rather too enthusiastically applied'.

Markham, who would not condone bullying in any form, even the hazing often offered to new SAS recruits, almost felt sorry for these would-be hard-cases. They were bullies, and probably cowards, but they had received a thorough beating from a highly-thought-of MI6 operative. That was punishment enough for anyone's sins.

The way Markham saw it, the boy was absolutely trapped. MI6 had him over a barrel, as their repeated intrusions into his life made it impossible for him to hold down a job, and they paid him less than a pittance for the work he did for them – the glorious Smithers (Markham was ready to confer a sainthood on the man for the work he had done researching Rider for God only knew how long), had even managed to get hold of copies of Rider's bank statements.

And Rider had no escape from all of this – with his appalling exam results, he was unlikely to get further than his GCSEs in education. Not even the most desperate crammer would accept him.

So, as Markham saw it, the thing to do was to set about getting the boy to resit his GCSEs, which would enable him to get a different future – whatever kind of future he wanted. When he had the necessary marks, they could see about sending him to some kind of boarding school, a relatively standard practice with military brats. Somewhere with a heavy government subsidy, maybe, unless the boy proved willing to sit some kind of scholarship.

The other vital thing was to get the boy's legal affairs in order and away from MI6. Some kind of guardian would have to be found, unless the boy could be emancipated, or unless someone was willing to step into the role in name only.

Thankfully, those bastards at MI6 had at least had the decency to pay his utility bills, which was one headache less, at least. That would evidently have to continue.

However, one thing at a time, Markham concluded, and picked up the phone.

"Good morning. Colonel Markham speaking." He said, in his crisp, clear voice. "Could you please pass a message on to the Prime Minister's staff for me?"

"Certainly, sir." Anyone who had access to this number evidently had the seniority to request such things, and the secretary he was talking to knew so. "May I ask which organisation you're affiliated with?"

"SAS and the Ministry of Defence."

"Thank you, sir. Your message?"

"Colonel Markham would like to request a meeting with the Prime Minister about A. Rider, at his earliest possible convenience."

"A rider, sir?" the secretary queried, confused. "A rider to what?"

Markham smiled, rather dryly, to himself. "No doubt his staff will be obliged to pass such a vague message along, and the Prime Minister knows exactly what it means." He said, calmly. "Please make sure to capitalise the 'a'."

"Certainly, sir." A brief pause while he wrote it down. He sounded no less confused, but a little more likely actually to pass the message on. "we'll get back to you with the time of your appointment by the end of the day."

"Thank you." Markham said, gravely, and hung up.

Knowing that his appointment with the Prime Minister wouldn't be until tomorrow at the very earliest, he made the next of his two important phone calls.

The first was not one he had ever expected to find himself making – Colonels did not often find themselves ringing the home numbers of Lieutenants in their corps to request meetings – but he wanted to see this thing properly sorted, and Lieutenant James San Luca was vital for that.

"San Luca?" The voice which answered the phone was formal and the slightest bit brusque.

"Lieutenant. Colonel Markham speaking."

"Sir?" The voice lost a little of its brusqueness, and Markham recognised the hint of an accent, heightened by confusion, in that perfectly formal voice.

"I want you to report to our London headquarters in half an hour's time, Lieutenant." He said, shortly, and San Luca paused, but said, finally,

"Of course, sir. Is there anything I should kn-"

"I'll see you in half an hour, Lieutenant." Markham said, firmly, and San Luca collected himself and broke off.

"Of course, sir."

"The receptionist will send you up to my office." He said, and rang off.

* * *

OK, so the serious AN of Doom - what, you thought I was going to spare you my standard AN practices? (scoffs) Please.

So, as some of you know, although I did have this story all written out, I've been working on the storyline so much that it is now drastically different, which is the reason for the long, loong delay on this chapter. I've now beaten the darned thing into submission, but the story from this point on has to be essentially completely re-written, and I'm only using bits and pieces of the stuff I had already done - it's all having to be reworked and bullied into doing what I want.

So, there is the reason for the delay, but my question is this - would you prefer me to write the whole thing and then post it at regular intervals, or do my normal thing of writing a chapter and then posting it immediately? If you want the former, it will be a very long delay before this story gets underway again, but the gaps will be short again. The other one, there'll be gaps between chapters when real life intervenes, but you will get individual chapters sooner than you get the whole story.

There it is. I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Do tell me, and tell me what you'd prefer in a lovely review. I love hearing from you all. (grin) Thanks for reading!

-amitai


	11. Chapter 11

So, if you've stopped hyperventilating yet over the sudden appearance of an update (yes, I know), I have a small confession to make to you, oh my readers.

I promised back in _**2008**_ that I would finish this story and post it as and when it was done. And I tried, I did, but something terrible happened - I completely ran out of inspiration. Dead wall. Staring me in the face every time I opened the document. And then, _it spread_. No Alex Rider inspiration _anywhere_. At all! It was awful. Everything just died, I didn't want to write ANYTHING.

And so, I didn't. It was my great AR famine of 2008/9.

But now, slowly but surely, inspiration has returned! I have about three chapters of this done (yes, I know, two years later and I STILL haven't finished it. Still. Inspiration!fail - and most people wanted me to write and post, so I'm bowing to reader pressure!), and will try and post RELATIVELY regularly. :D

Thanks as always go to **Von**, who is my life, my sweetness and my hope. She also delivers a mean kick up the arse when you need one. This is her favourite story of mine, and I hereby dedicate it to her!

DISCLAIMER: Anthony Horowitz wouldn't kill his golden goose in the same way I'm trying to.

* * *

Wolf had always hated the headquarters the SAS kept in London. The official headquarters were in Credenhill, but it was London that organised the essentials; appointed civilian instructors for things like first aid, language training and interrogation, dealt with any legal proceedings and liaised with the various government sections. In fact, the official name was the SAS Liaison Bureau, and that was possibly why Wolf disliked it; the Credenhill HQ was for internal matters, he knew where he stood there. The London HQ was for dealing with those outside the SAS, and he always felt off-balance and out of place.

It was in an old converted town house just of Grosvenor Square, quiet and discrete, and any inquiries would have found it to be the Trust branch of a minor British bank, set up in the Second World War specifically to deal with pensions for retired soldiers, which had slowly grown. In fact, it was still a popular bank with soldiers who operated in high risk areas.

On going inside, in his dress uniform - not an unusual sight for this bank - Wolf gave his name to the secretary, and was directed up to the fourth floor, where he knocked sharply on the heavy oak door - soundproofed, beyond all doubt, Wolf reflected- with 'Markham' writen on a brass plaque.

"Enter!"

Opening the door, and shutting it carefully behind him, Wolf turned to his superior and saluted smartly. "Sir."

"Ah, san Luca. At ease. In fact, take a seat."

Wolf sat awkwardly right on the edge of the seat. "Thank you, sir."

"Lieutenant, I'm sure you have some idea of why I've invited you here today."

"Alex Rider, sir." He nodded. "Has something happened, sir?"

"A great deal of information has come to light." Markham said, carefully. "A lot of which I am going to share with you, and on which I expect you to brief your unit," he paused. "Before we start, however, it may be a relief for you to know that you will of course be receiving active service pay whilst Command has you assigned to this task."

"Thank you, sir," Wolf said simply, and waited.

Markham offered him a thin smile. "Now. With the Rider boy, we've come up with a basic plan of action based on our new information – but the boy is unpredictable, and since you'll be carrying out this plan, you'll need to go in with a degree of – flexibility."

"Flexibility, sir?"

"If your approach needs to be changed, based on Rider's reaction, do it," Markham explained bluntly. "I'll back up any decisions you make with HQ." He sat back and paused for a second. "This is not our usual area, I know, and it's expecting a lot that this will go off without a hitch," he said finally, "especially since Rider is more than on edge and you have no relationship with him to work with. I'm not telling you this as an excuse for failure, I'm telling you so that you know we – _I_ – don't expect miracles."

Wolf nodded smartly. "Sir."

Markham slid the photocopied folder he'd made up for K-Unit across the desk and Wolf eyed it without picking it up. "This is most of the information we have on the boy. I was given it by a man named Smithers, which," he made sure he had eye-contact with San Luca before continuing, "I am only telling you because you may need that information when you first talk to the boy. It makes for an interesting read," he met Wolf's eyes, and nodded, almost to himself. "I suggest you acquaint yourself with it before you try and meet the boy."

"Sir," Wolf began, then cut himself off, clearly uneasy.

"What is it?"

"I just can't – we made brief contact with Cub – Rider, sir. I don't know how comfortable he's going to be with our being acquainted with information like this when he's still working on next to no intelligence about us."

Markham looked away for a second. It was certainly a viewpoint he hadn't considered before. "I don't see a solution to that other than honesty," he said, and had he not been in the middle of a meeting with a lower ranked soldier, he might have shrugged. "You need to know what's in the file, and that's the end of it."

"Yes, sir," For a moment, Wolf tapped a finger against his leg, thinking, then said carefully, "but if I might suggest...?"

"What?"

"Is there anything that we could take on us for _him_ to read? An exchange of information would probably set his mind a little more at ease."

Markham frowned lightly. "Such as what?"

"Our files, sir."

"That information is classified, San Luca."

"Yes, sir," Wolf ducked his head briefly, but when he looked up again, he met Markham's eyes straight on, "but with all due respect, Alex Rider was so classified, he didn't even exist outside MI6's records, and that's his folder right there. He's a sixteen year old spy, I think we can trust him with it. And I really don't see how we can possibly gain his trust without giving him something back for the information we have on him."

Markham's frown deepened for a moment, then he relaxed. "A valid enough point," he agreed calmly. "I'll have someone copy your files – with omissions where necessary," he added firmly, and Wolf just nodded – he knew when to pick his battles, "and have them brought round to you."

"Thank you sir."

"Now, this file," Markham continued as though there had been no interruption at all, "this should be everything you need to know, including the boy's address – unless you know that already from your previous contact with him?" Wolf flushed dully, but shook his head. "Then all of that is in here. When you get into contact with him, make sure to be calm and non-confrontational; we want the boy to be sure that we're on his side."

"And if he asks about what we want from him?" He asked, carefully; that was evidently Cub's biggest problem. He simply couldn't believe that someone could want to do something for him without expecting anything in return.

"Do whatever you can to convince him that we don't want anything," Markham said firmly.

"Is that true, sir?" He asked carefully. "Rider isn't likely to believe that we are expending so much effort for philanthropic reasons."

"Understandable," Markham agreed. He paused – what could San Luca tell him? "Tell him that MI6 has grown too big for its boots," he said finally. "And our – horror – at his treatment provides a neat way of cutting them down to size again. If he presses further, tell him that the man in charge of this – affair... knew his father."

Wolf had far too much sense to press the point – that admission alone was far more than anything members of the SAS usually shared with their junior officers. "Yes, sir. We're to make contact with Rider and establish a – rapport, yes?"

"In a nutshell, Lieutenant."

"And once we've established this rapport, sir?"

"I expect that will take a good week or so, Lieutenant," Markham said quietly, "if not longer. There will be plenty of time for me to contact you with further instructions. We will be dealing with MI6 whilst you establish this contact with the boy, we need to make sure that they're too tied up elsewhere to interfere with our," the briefest flicker of a smile, "rescue mission. I estimate that you have a fortnight at the very least, so. Use it well." He ended the interview with a firm nod.

Wolf took the hint, got to his feet and saluted. "Sir."

"Lieutenant."

Wolf was at the door before Markham spoke up again. "Oh, and Lieutenant – take a taxi home and claim it back. It would be _extremely_ unfortunate if anything were to happen to that file."

* * *

The moment he got back home, Wolf rang the rest of his teammates, the file lying untouched and faintly ominous on his kitchen table. He wasn't about to open it just yet, unwilling to journey into the kid's troubled past all by himself, or whatever bullshit reason Eagle was bound to come up with for his leaving it well enough alone.

Whilst his team made the trip over to his, their unofficial HQ for this, he puttered about, irritated at himself for his own indecision, boiling the kettle without making tea, checking in his fridge without eating anything, sitting down at the sofa without turning on the TV or picking up a book without so much as opening it to read it. The file on his table was all too compelling a thought. Finally, with a bitten-off curse, he sat himself down at the table and pulled the file towards him, opening it and beginning to read.

The first page was nothing more than a bullet point of the kid's characteristics – his age, hair colour, eye colour, height and weight, and so on. The next page appeared to be a transcript of some kind, a school report of some kind, maybe? Wolf eyed the rest of the file, thick with paper, and sighed. This was going to take some time to get through.

Inevitably, that was when the doorbell rang, and he let Fox in with a nod. "Just started reading," he said tersely. "There's a lot to get through."

"What?" Fox asked, understandably confused. "Reading what? You just said to come over."

"I was called in to talk to the guy in charge this morning, Colonel Markham – you ever heard of him?"

"No. But then, I'm not Snake, the walking encyclopaedia of all things SAS," Fox pointed out with a grin. "He'll have heard of him."

"Mm," Wolf grunted, seating himself again at the table and fishing out about a quarter of the papers to hand over to Fox. "He gave me this. It's 'most of the information' they have on Cub, apparently."

"God knows how big the original must have been if this is 'most' of it," Fox commented, taking a chair opposite Wolf's. "I'd ask for a tea, but I'd rather wait until Snake gets here to make it."

"That was _one time_," Wolf grumbled, and they settled into a comfortable silence which lasted maybe three minutes before the doorbell went again.

Eagle and Snake arrived together, which earned them a minute or so of teasing from Fox before Eagle whacked him over the head with his share of the paper, and Wolf glared at them both indiscriminately. Snake brought tea over to the table, and they settled down for a silence which lasted all of a minute and a half before Snake – of all people – burst out, "oh, this is ridiculous!"

Wolf frowned. "The hell?"

"Medical records," Eagle said succinctly, leaning over to see what had Snake so worked up. "Huh, they look pretty – detailed."

"They look pretty _long_," Snake corrected, a snap in his voice. "Listen to this – shot above the heart, pulmonary artery ruptured. Surgery and PT. Scars on legs, infected, barbed wire suspected. Stitches and PT. Bullet lodged in brachial artery. Surgery and P-fucking-T," he flung down the papers. "I could go on. And on, actually."

Wolf glanced at the top sheet. "Doesn't sound that detailed to me," he said carefully.

Eagle shifted the top paper away. "Ah, but Snake has all the fun of the doctor's reports yet to come."

"You're focussing on the wrong part here," Snake snapped. "These are the medical records of a sixteen year old, and he's been _shot_ three times that I can see – at least! And-" he broke off. "I'm getting worked up," he said finally. "I think someone else should take his medical records. Someone who can just accept 'em and move on. Wolf, swap."

Wolf took the papers handed to him with a fair degree of misgiving, but shrugged and sighed. "I think I got school reports and mission reports," he told Snake. "Try – I know it's hard, but try to be objective, OK?"

* * *

Alex put all his tools back neatly in the box they'd designated as 'his' and slotted it onto the shelf next to Derek's before turning to head into the office, only to be stopped as Don caught his arm.

"Hey, why not – give it a rest for tonight, huh?" He said, casual except for his eyes, which looked worried. "Go home early, get yourself some sleep."

Alex had a shift at the _Goose_ tonight, and there was no question of 'going home early', so he just grinned and shook his head. It didn't matter that the grin felt as though it was stretching his skin too tight over the bones of his face, or that he just wanted to sleep for years, he had a shift later. "Look that bad, do I?"

Don managed a smile. "You look pretty bad, yeah," he agreed. "I wouldn't care, but I'm worried you'll start to scare of customers." The hand he laid on Alex's shoulder gave the lie to his words. "Everything OK at home, kid?"

"Yeah. Y'know, just... missing my mum." It went against the grain to lie to someone like Don, who'd been nothing but kind to him, but Alex was, he reflected bitterly, extremely good at lying. "It's... hard to sleep."

"And your uncle," Don started uncertainly, and Alex cursed himself for ever trying that lie. If only he hadn't been tired and off-balance when he saw Eagle, he could have come up with five better cover-stories off the top of his head, "he's not – he's not making things difficult for you?"

"Nah," Alex said lightly, and wasn't even sure whether or not it was a lie, "he was only hanging around for the Will to be read. Not that mum had much to leave." Which wasn't, he told himself, really a lie. He'd never found anything of his parents' lying around the house, though presumably they had left things.

"Well – well, good then," Don grinned. "Look, it's my birthday this Sunday, we were all going to go for a drink now – since it's Friday, y'know – why don't you come along?"

"'M underage," Alex said quickly, trying to think of a way – any way – to avoid going to the _Goose_ with the rest of the garage.

Don laughed. "I won't tell if you don't, kid."

Alex paused, but couldn't see any way out of it. "Gimme a minute to change out of my overalls, then," he nodded, and managed a grin in response to Don's.

* * *

For once, luck seemed to be going Alex's way again, and Don by some miracle chose a pub other than the _Goose_. He let them buy him a half-pint of cider, pretended that this was the most daring thing he'd ever done, and let the other men's talk – about events he hadn't been there for, or jokes he didn't remember sharing – flow over him.

Derek leant across the table to him, two beers in and completely clear-headed. "C'mon, kid, your turn. You're a bit of a mystery really, aren't you?"

Alex shrugged. "Nothing so very mysterious about me," he managed a smile.

"You turn up out of the blue, no parents, sixteen years old, looking like you've gone ten rounds with Godzilla," Derek ticked the points off on his finger, and Alex shifted uncomfortably, "no explanation in sight. Mystery. Spill the beans, kid!"

Alex heaved a put-upon sigh. "Well, alright them. I'm actually a spy."

Derek laughed, over-loud, whilst the other mechanics grinned at the joke. "Right, then. And what are we? Your next investigation?"

"Nah, you're my cover story," Alex embroidered. "I'm investigating – hey, Don, what should I be investigating in your garage?"

"Tax fraud," Don tried, playing along.

"Please, I'm a super-spy," Alex returned, getting a little more into the spirit of things, "tax fraud and they send an accountant."

"Fine then, I don't know – drugs smuggling. I'm getting it out in the engines."

"Fine criminal mind you've got there, Don," Will put in, with a grin. "S'pose we'd better keep an eye on you now the kid's put it into your head?"

"Eh, why bother? We've got our super-spy doing the dirty work for us," Derek chuckled, and Alex relaxed fully for the first time in what felt like months. He might only be 'the kid' to most of them, but they didn't ask anything more of him than that he turned up to work on time and did his job as best he could. And they included him and considered him. It was a heady, unusual feeling for Alex, and he intended to enjoy it for as long as possible.

They stayed in the pub, chatting and just – spending time together. Alex couldn't remember the last time he'd just sat and _talked_ to people, especially not people he actually wanted to spend time around – until about half an hour before his shift at the _Goose_, when he sat back and stretched, surprised at the strength of his own reluctance to leave. "I'd better make a move," he said quietly, "I'm in early tomorrow." And working late tonight, he didn't say.

Don glanced up at him, his expression momentarily worried before it smoothed out into mild determination. "Why don't you make it a free day, kid? You look like you could use the sleep." He smiled, "call it a birthday gift."

Alex was so tired, he didn't even think about how maybe he needed the money more than he needed the sleep, and after a moment's consideration, nodded gratefully. "Thank you," he said simply, "that would be _great_."

Don smiled, clearly pleased. "Which means you've got no excuse not to come to the party," he said, satisfied.

Alex frowned, vaguely wondering if he could backtrack himself out of this. A drink with friends he could manage, a party was probably not his thing. Especially not given how he felt at the moment. "Party?" he asked warily.

"Don calls it a party because he's a fuckin' cheapskate," Derek grinned. "It's lunch, down in that pub near us? The _Goose_ _on the Green_."

A chill went down Alex's spine. "Yeah, I know the one," he said rather faintly.

"Best part of it is," Mike leaned in, "Ella comes, and you _do not _want to miss that."

"Ella?"

"My wife," Don said comfortably. "Don't know why she says she'll come when she has this idiot pawing her all the way through. I keep telling him hands off, but it's like talking to a brick wall." He gave Mike a considering glance. "Like looking at one, too, actually."

Derek spoke over Mike's outraged protests. "It's just a meet up, kid, you can make it. We promise to cut your food up for you..."

"Oh, leave off," Alex said absently, the humour in his tone totally at-odds with the low-level panic he was feeling. He had an early shift at the _Goose_ – Sunday was one of their busiest days, especially for food – but he didn't have an excuse not to be at this party of Don's. By his own admission, all his family were dead or absolute bastards, and he couldn't even say he needed to catch up on his sleep anymore. "I – yeah, I guess I could- I mean, that sounds really great," he managed a smile. "I'd love to."

"OK then," Don nodded, giving him the same wide, pleased smile as before – and Alex couldn't help but respond with his own, more genuine this time. "See you then. We'll be getting there about – what, two-ish? Round about then anyway."

Alex's shift ended at one – he heaved an internal sigh of relief, and nodded. "See you then."

* * *

Alex all but fell through the front door of his house, abandoning his carefully-adopted limp, and allowed the previously internalised sigh full reign, relief and exhaustion given an outlet for a few brief seconds before he pushed himself up and into the kitchen. There was actual coffee and tea in the cupboard, a half-full bottle of milk in the fridge, along with cheese, bread, ham, pasta in the next cupboard along. He was a damn sight better off now than he had been before, and the knowledge of an entirely free day tomorrow to do – whatever he liked with, to sleep, watch TV, just let things catch up with him a little... it was a heady prospect.

He made himself a tea and collapsed onto the sofa, absently flicking the TV on and determinedly moving past the news channels. He didn't want to know what terrible things were happening – MI6 would probably guilt him into helping clear some of them up before too much time had passed, and he was going to maintain his own blissful ignorance until then – and settling on a showing of 'Chicken Run' on Channel Five. Mindless entertainment, something Alex hadn't been able indulge in for way too long.

He settled back on the sofa and prepared to enjoy every single moment of it.

* * *

And there it is! In its terrifying technicolour glory. :D I hope you all enjoyed it after the long, long wait!

Do drop me a line if you did. (grin)

-amitai


	12. Chapter 12

Dear, patient readers! Another chapter, at long last, for your delectation and delight. I have to admit, I'm focussing most strongly on HIOP rather than this fic, but it is still planned out and written in places, so don't despair!

This chapter is dedicated, with gratitude, to **Erroneously111**, who won a fic/chapter from me at help_japan. I hope it was worth the long, long wait, lovey!

I'm currently in New York, working for the summer (and feeling terribly swish as I do it!), and the minute I get back home, I'm off again somewhere else, so I don't know what I'll be able to get written this summer, but I'm hoping to get at least another chapter of HIOP done. *sigh* well, we shall see.

I can but hope.

Hope everyone is enjoying their summer and, without further ado:

DISCLAIMER!: Yeah, no.

* * *

_Alex all but fell through the front door of his house, abandoning his carefully-adopted limp, and allowed the previously internalised sigh full reign, relief and exhaustion given an outlet for a few brief seconds before he pushed himself up and into the kitchen. There was actual coffee and tea in the cupboard, a half-full bottle of milk in the fridge, along with cheese, bread, ham, pasta in the next cupboard along. He was a damn sight better off now than he had been before, and the knowledge of an entirely free day tomorrow to do – whatever he liked with, to sleep, watch TV, just let things catch up with him a little... it was a heady prospect._

_He made himself a tea and collapsed onto the sofa, absently flicking the TV on and determinedly moving past the news channels. He didn't want to know what terrible things were happening – MI6 would probably guilt him into helping clear some of them up before too much time had passed, and he was going to maintain his own blissful ignorance until then – and settling on a showing of 'Chicken Run' on Channel Five. Mindless entertainment, something Alex hadn't been able indulge in for way too long._

_He settled back on the sofa and prepared to enjoy every single moment of it._

* * *

While Alex was settling down to enjoy his rare day off, K-Unit were still at Wolf's flat trying to work through what Eagle had dubbed their Epic Plan. They'd all agreed that given how badly their previous interaction with Cub had gone, it was more than wise to go in there with a base plan and to stick to it as much as possible; somehow they had to convince the kid that they had his best interests at heart – and after reading his file yesterday, they could all easily get behind wanting him out of MI6's clutches.

"Right," Snake started up, shoving a pot of tea onto the table, and standing back, clearly gearing up for a lecture – or maybe a motivational speech. "First things first, we have to work out how we're going to approach the kid, and then we have to work out how to stop him from running-"

"Easily done," Wolf said firmly. "We ambush him – nicely!" he added hastily, seeing Snake's eyes narrow with disapproval, "at his house. We've got his address now."

"Tell me what a 'nice' ambush is, would you?" Eagle enquired sweetly and Wolf heaved a put-upon sigh.

"We turn up unexpectedly, then, at his house. Hang around for him to come back if we have to. Then we sit him down and have a chat."

"How are we going to know he's there?" Snake asked, a small frown in place that indicated thoughtfulness rather than annoyance. "I'm not hanging around for hours waiting for the kid to get back."

"Cub-watching," Fox offered unexpectedly.

"What, sorry?" Snake asked.

"Stake the place out," Fox explained. "Watch him, see when he comes and goes – maybe find some sort of 'in' that'll make him listen to us-"

"I don't think that's a good idea," Snake said carefully.

"Why not?" Fox asked, a little put out.

"This," Snake tapped the photo of Cub's house from the file, "is a nice, residential area. What do you think the inhabitants of this nice, residential area are going to think of four big – sorry, Wolf – guys hanging around outside one of their houses? We'll have the police called on us if we're lucky. And if we're not, MI6 are going to have someone watching the place and we'll have blown everything. Even one of us would be pretty conspicuous – this isn't exactly somewhere we can easily find cover."

"Not to mention," Eagle added, "this kid will probably notice us, and from the way he's reacted to us before, I'm pretty sure he thinks we're working for SIS. I don't think we want to make that kind of impression. I mean, we know the kid's good at what he does," said with a grimace, "and he'd see us, and I don't think we want him making the assumptions he's clearly going to."

"Then what do you suggest?" Wolf asked.

"Well, we can't exactly ambush him at work," Eagle said, rubbing absently at the faint bruising under his eye. "If he didn't go apeshit again, then those guys he works with will. They're fond of the kid."

"I think you'd better go back to Markham," Snake said, "and see if we can get a key for this place."

"Cos it'll really help his trust issues to have us _in his house_ when he gets back," Fox pointed out. "No, we should pick a night, find out when he leaves his last job that night and wait at his house for him then."

"One suggestion," Eagle said, stretching his legs out in front of him and leaning back, hands clasped over his stomach. "Go round tomorrow and knock. Fuck, tonight, maybe."

Wolf frowned. "That's pretty much what I suggested."

"Yeah, but hanging around and waiting for him is not going to look good, from his point of view," Eagle pointed out. "It will actually _look_ like an ambush, and that's the last thing we want him to think we're doing."

"If we don't wait for him, how the hell are we ever going to be able to pick a time when he's in? You're the one who told us he was always working!"

"The kid's got two jobs, right?" Eagle said slowly, and Wolf nodded. "Right, so, he's got two jobs, and unless he's some sort of superhuman and is working yet another job, when he's not working he's at home."

"But we don't know when he's working!" Wolf said, frustrated. "Not well, anyway."

"Fine, we'll just turn up early, then," Eagle sighed. "Look, we're getting our knickers in a twist over how to make him feel like we trust and respect him, I'm pretty sure starting this off on as normal a footing as possible is the way to do that. No staking out his house to make him feel like he's being watched, no ambushing him – just knocking and asking if we can talk. And making it clear that we're happy to come back at a better time for him if that's what he wants. We know where he lives, he'll _know _we know where he lives, we get to demonstrate some, some care _and_ some flexibility. Win/win."

"And if he's not there?" Wolf asked, still frowning.

"We go back another time," Eagle said. "We're already working at a disadvantage with this kid, we need to stack the deck in our favour, at least as far as he's concerned. We need to make sure that he knows we're doing this to make things better, not to trap him even more. To be honest ,Wolf, I don't see how the other options are going to demonstrate anything to him other than that we're a little bit creepy, and I'm pretty sure the poor kid's had enough of that."

"I don't like the uncertainty of it," Wolf said heavily. "It could end up taking even longer than the other two options."

"His last mission was months back, and ever since he tried to kill himself," Snake didn't mince words, "MI6 have left him well enough alone. A little more time's not going to make a blind bit of difference – and who knows, first contact might be over by this time tomorrow, it's worth the gamble. And," he added, with some deliberation, "Eagle's right, we want to start this off on as normal a footing as possible."

Wolf capitulated, almost with good grace. "Yeah, well. If that's what you guys think is best, then we'll do that. Markham's sending over our files sometime tonight-"

"What's that got to do with anything?" Eagle asked, frowning.

Wolf frowned right back at him. "You said it yourself, we need to level the playing field for the kid. We know about him, he gets to know about us."

Eagle nodded. "Fine, tomorrow then. What time?"

"Six?" Wolf offered, and Fox groaned, but nodded along with the other two. "Fine. We'll meet here at five thirty, and head over together. United front, and all that."

"You're just worried about getting lost again, aren't you?" Eagle grinned, dispelling a little of the tension. "Don't worry, we'll make sure you don't have to read any maps this time round."

"I don't know why I keep letting you into my flat," Wolf told him with dignity, and smacked him upside the back of the head with the file when Eagle went to respond.

* * *

Alex had taken a long, luxurious bath, refusing to worry about anything like the cost of all the hot water, and used up the last of the bubble-bath that Jack had left behind without letting himself feel so much as a twinge of guilt. He was starting to realise, albeit slowly, that he needed the downtime almost as much as he needed the money he was earning as bolster against MI6; when he started working for them again, which was inevitable, he would end up dead pretty quickly if he didn't take this opportunity to build himself up again. And being dead was starting to look less appealing.

He had no idea how he would feel after another assignment, but in the meantime, he was going to make the most of the way life felt _good_ again.

He went to bed blissfully early, and fell asleep surprisingly easily, without letting his conscience bother him once.

* * *

The knock on his door early the next morning did not come, therefore, as a welcome surprise. It was loud, and insistent, and for a few moments, Alex had actually thought it was part of his dream, which had never happened to him before. He'd been trained, painstakingly and over many years, to wake up instantly to external stimuli, not assume they were benign and leave the waking world to its own devices.

He stumbled downstairs with a few muttered, vicious curses, but paused momentarily in front of the door. He hardly thought whoever it was would be dangerous – assassins, in Alex's all-too-exhaustive experience, rarely knocked – but it might be MI6 agents about to drag him off on another high-octane wild goose chase, and he wanted as much of an advantage as he could scrape together. He didn't need to look round the hallway to see the best exits and hiding places – he'd clocked them all years ago. He did, however, grab his keys in one hand, to act as sharp, impromptu knuckledusters if things went to hell, and palmed the heavy paperweight off the hall table, just in case.

He wished, briefly, as he pulled the Yale lock back, that he'd been dressed, but he'd been hoping for a lie-in. Just another thing MI6 had taken from him, he thought, and opened the door.

He hadn't been expecting K-Unit, and he'd been expecting their apologies even less.

"Is this a bad time?" Snake asked, his eyes flicking to Alex's pyjama trousers and rumpled T-shirt. "We can come back."

Alex internalised his groan. "How did you find me?" he asked immediately. The only way, he knew, was for MI6 to have told them, which could only mean bad things for him.

Snake shrugged. "Let us in and we'll tell you," he offered.

"Or," Alex countered, "you tell me now, and I consider letting you in." They were silent for a long moment, and Alex shrugged. "Whatever," he said, a pitch-perfect impression of a normal teenager, and went to shut the door.

"Wait!" Snake said quickly. "We got the information from Command, and they got it from a contact at – at-" Alex could see him glance around and sighed, pulling the door open again.

"Yeah, I know where your contact is from," he said sarcastically. "Please don't tell everyone else."

"So can we come in now?" Eagle asked, shifting awkwardly and glancing round. His posture screamed 'awkward', and Alex found himself thinking critically that someone should really have trained that out of him.

He allowed himself a moment of bitterness before speaking again. "Who's your contact? What are you here for, anyway?"

"I don't know who the contact is," Snake said honestly, remembering Wolf's relayed warning about not lying to the kid. "But we heard it from Colonel Markham, in Command. And I swear, we just want to talk. If you don't like what we're saying, we'll leave, no problem."

When Alex took too long considering this, Wolf weighed in with his two cents. "It'd be a good idea for you to listen to us, Cub."

Alex bristled a little, but couldn't work up the energy to blow Wolf's words into a fully fledged fight. "Oh, yeah?" he said.

"Look, Cub, let us in, and we'll tell you everything, OK? Nothing left out. Just – we can't have this conversation out in the street."

Alex considered his options; if he was honest with himself, he was more than a little surprised that they hadn't already shoved their way in, as any visitors he got from MI6 tended to do. "If you don't leave the moment I tell you to, I will make things very unpleasant for you," he promised, and held the door open for them. "Shut it behind you," he added with deliberate ill grace.

He headed into the kitchen without glancing back, hearing rather than seeing the door shut and the automatic lock click into place. In the kitchen, he turned the kettle on and grabbed himself a mug before turning back to his unexpected guests. Pointedly, he didn't offer them a drink.

"What can I do for you?" he asked, already dreading the answer, though considering the way they'd acted so far, he doubted they were from MI6. MI6 rarely sent the SAS to do this kind of dirty work – at least not regularly – and if they wanted to play some kind of deep game with Alex, they wouldn't have chosen the SAS, not even this team. There was no guarantee, after all, that even the best soldier would be able to pull off the kind of acting that job would require.

Eagle was staring at him. "You seem – calmer," he said, and Alex would have flushed, but he had far too strong a hold on himself for that.

"Do I?" he said insouciantly, and Eagle wisely let the question drop.

Wolf glanced at Snake to pick up the slack; he seemed to have been delegated the mouthpiece for their visit. "We're here from the SAS, not MI6," Snake said unhurriedly, his words deliberate. "And if you want us to leave, we will, but we think you should hear us out, if you've got the time."

Alex glanced between them. "Why the change of tune?" he asked, careful not to show them even half of the suspicion he was feeling. "What could the SAS want with me?"

"To be honest with you, Cub-" Wolf began

"That'll be a change," Alex muttered, and Wolf ignored him.

"The SAS don't want anything from you. What Command want is for MI6 to be taken down a few pegs, and they think you're the best way to get them over a barrel."

"So that's what Command want," Alex repeated slowly. "What do _you _want, other than to play the obedient lapdog?"

Wolf gritted his teeth and didn't rise to the antagonism in Alex's voice. Snake sensed the danger, however, and stepped in again. "We want you out of their clutches," he said simply, and held up a hand when Alex opened his mouth. "We're not turning into philanthropists, Cub, and yeah, we hardly know you, but you know what MI6 have done to you is wrong, and _I_ know it. And I made a career out of wanting to right wrongs."

"How did the military help you with that goal?" Alex asked, sarcasm running thick through every word.

"Getting on just fine, thanks for asking," Snake said, with unimpeachable calm. Alex looked away first.

"Well, forgive me," he said, "but I don't buy it."

"Fine," Eagle returned, before Snake could open his mouth. "You don't have to buy it, you just have to let us help. We read your records, Cub, and-"

"You're lying," Alex said instantly. He didn't react outwardly to the claim – it had been a long time since anyone had been able to shock him into a reaction – but his heart was beating a little faster. The only, _only _upside of the things he'd done for MI6 was that no one would know about them, and no one would know what a monster he could be when pushed to it. "They didn't keep any records. Why would they? Why would they risk getting caught?" He turned away to make the tea, buying himself a little time to calm down. "Why would they keep internal records of my assignments when they didn't even let me exist properly in real life?"

"What do you mean?" Wolf asked gruffly.

"I know they wiped my records," Alex said wearily. "I knew when I was fifteen, and we had a project at school, researching family history. I don't exist in the public records – not as my parents' son, anyway."

Suddenly exhausted, he sank into one of the kitchen chairs, and didn't even bother to look up when K-Unit seated themselves around him. "Someone was keeping records, anyway," Eagle said, awkwardly picking the thread of the conversation back up. "Here."

He shoved a manila folder across the table to Alex, who flicked it open without much interest. "Smithers," he said, after reading half a page.

"How did you know?" Wolf asked, wondering if this was what made the boy the asset MI6 had been so ruinously desperate to hold on to.

"No one else calls me 'dear boy'," Alex said dispassionately, closing the folder. Eagle noticed, with some interest, that he had gone a little pale. "So, you know all about it, then."

"Yes," Snake said, not without sympathy. "Pretty impressive, Cub."

"MI6 thought so," Alex agreed, with a complete lack of pride. "But most of my skills wouldn't be any use to the SAS."

"They aren't interested in them," Snake shrugged. "You're not so much a pawn to them as you are to MI6 – if you say back off, I guarantee they will," Alex raised an eyebrow, but kept quiet, "but you're a means to an end for them." Seeing Alex's unimpressed look, he pressed on. "Look, at the end of the day, they aren't interested in _you_, not the way MI6 are. They're interested in taking MI6 down a few pegs, and when you get right down to it they're only interested in you because you'll help them with that."

"Yeah, they're real philanthropists," Alex muttered, and Snake sighed.

"What do you want from us, then?" he asked. "I thought you _wanted_ to get away from MI6 – or I thought you _would_want to."

"I _do_," Alex said, almost fiercely. "But just once, it would be nice, once in a way, to have someone want to help me _for me_, not just because they – their superiors told them too."

"Well," Fox broke in, with a small smile, "to be honest, I thought that was what we were here for." Alex shot him a withering look, and Fox held his hands up in the universal gesture of defence. "Hey, all I'm saying is, we got involved because we had a personal connection with you."

"Yeah, really personal," Alex said, a hint of a sneer in his voice. "You're only here because I wrote to Wolf, and that went just _brilliantly_, didn't it?" Wolf flushed dully. "Whatever's motivating you lot – guilt, or the intrigue of it all, or, or... whatever! – don't try to sell it to me as you taking a 'personal' interest."

Fox shrugged. "Fine, then," he said. "We won't. But, we _are_ interested and it's not like you really have many other options right now, is it?"

Alex almost snarled at him, but, as always, carefully held himself back. "MI6 pay my bills," he snapped, "they pay _me_, and I have _no other option_ than to stay working for them."

"Like hell you haven't," Wolf snapped, with his customary lack of tact.

"My grades are in that file, aren't they?" Alex snapped back. "I have shit GCSEs, Wolf, and I missed the retake period; I have no grades worth spitting on, no crammer will take me, no university will take me, and I don't have the free time to start at the bottom of a company and work my way up, because _I'm off killing people_." His voice was quiet, but there was no doubting his intensity. "If I want to live at all comfortably – even selling this place wouldn't work, it's in _trust_ – I need MI6 there smoothing the way."

"You need to get away from them," Snake said, very quietly, "if you want to live much longer at all."

"The only reason you even remembered I existed," Alex returned, "is because clearly, I _don't_."

For a long moment, there was silence: impasse. Then Eagle, once more going where angels feared to tread, stepped in.

"I thought," he said carefully, watching Alex with unusually sharp eyes, "that you seemed calmer. Like things weren't so much of a drag for you. Are you really expecting me to believe that you still want to die?"

Alex shrugged. He'd been riding the high of feeling liked by his colleagues, of having things a little more under control, and having K-unit in his kitchen was slowly but surely sapping that high away from him. "What's actually changed, Eagle?" he asked. "MI6 own me. This is just an interval before another world-saving main event. Sure, I'm happier now, but this isn't going to last."

"And that's exactly the reason you should let us – the SAS – try and help," Eagle said, his voice unusually gentle. "We've got the big guns on our side this time, Cub. Ministry of Defence, the Prime Minister, we're in talks with MI5 right now. We can really hit 'em where it hurts, if you help us, and if you help us bring them down, we can get you out." He saw Alex's expression change fractionally and hastened to correct his mistake. "Not like that! It's not an 'I scratch your back, you scratch mine' deal, OK, I promise. It's – getting you out is _how _we get them down. We want to help you, Cub, and we want to topple Alan Blunt at the same time. What d'you think?"

"We can sort out the problems with your exams," Snake promised, stepping in as he saw Alex waver. "Extenuating circumstances, we can find a way for you to resit them. Markham – Colonel Markham, the officer heading this operation-"

"You said," Alex remarked sarcastically, every hint of his earlier fervour and depression gone. Eagle found himself reluctantly impressed.

Snake ignored him. "He's taking a pretty personal interest in things, I'm sure he's got a plan."

Alex took a sip of tea, and thought for a long moment. "I want out," he said finally, and caught Fox nudge Eagle as Eagle gave a somewhat premature sigh of relief. "But I'm not convinced I won't be jumping from the frying pan into the fire." As Snake went to speak, Alex continued without pause. "After all, when have you lot ever actually wanted to help me before?" He paused to let the impact of what he was saying sink in, watching with some satisfaction as Wolf flushed dully. "And even if your intentions are as pure as you say they are, I'm really not sure I'm not going to just be left high and dry when all this is over, your command have got what they want, and I'm left as – as collateral."

Snake waited for a moment to make sure that Alex was really finished, then nodded. "What can we do to convince you?" he asked.

Alex shrugged. "Take me to your leader," he said simply, with what might have been a smile. "I want to meet Colonel Markham. Either I meet him, or I do my considerable best," he'd never believed in false modesty, "to make sure that this whole thing never gets off the ground. My life right now is shit, but at least it's going somewhere, even if it's straight into a wall at a hundred miles an hour. I don't want to end up stuck for the rest of my life. I'm not going to get left high and dry." He let that sink in for a minute. "So, what do you say?"

"We'll need to talk to him-"

"Go and do it, then," Alex said, and stood. "And don't come back until a reasonable hour."

"You got plans, Cub?" Eagle asked with a grin, relieved to be getting somewhere at long last.

"Don't call me that," Alex returned instantly. "And yes, I do. I'm going back to _bed._"

* * *

And done. :D Hope you enjoyed!

-ami xxx


End file.
